THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

STRATFORD k 13

J^^U OO. WA\\\ " 1-U5 nils.

(J

THE

TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE

A NOVEL

BY

W. CLARK RUSSELL

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1892

Copyright, 1891,
Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved.

3

Co

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAOB

I. A Yankee ruse 5

II. The people of La Casandra 33

III. Don Christoval's story 59

IV. A MIDNIGHT THEFT 90

V. Madame 123

VI. A TRAGEDY 154

VII. Don Lazarillo leaves us 185

VIII. Ida Noble 219

IX. Captain Noble 249

1

JL.O i

THE TEAGEDY OE IDA KOBLE.

CHAPTER I.

A YANKEE RUSE.

On Monday, August 8tli, 1838, the large bark
Ocean Ranger, of which I was second mate, was
in latitude 38° 40' N., and longitude 11° W. The
hour was four o'clock in the afternoon. I had come
on deck to relieve the chief officer, who had had
charge of the ship since twelv^e. It was a very
heavy day — a sullen sky of gray va}3or seeming
to overhang our mastheads within pistol-shot of the
trucks. From time to time there had stolen from
the far reaches of the ocean a note as of the groan-
ing of a tempest, but there had been no lightning ;
the wind hung a steady breeze out of the east, and
the ship, with slanting masts and rounded breasts
of canvas, showing with a glare of snow against
the dark ground of the sky, pushed quietly through

6 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

the water that floated in a light swell to the yellow
line of her sheathing.

Some time before I arrived on deck a vessel had
been descried on the port bow, and now at this hour
of four she had risen to the tacks of her courses,
and her sails shone so radiantly in the dusky distance
that at the first glance I knew her to be an Amer-
ican. The captain of my ship, a man named Hoste,
was pacing the deck near the wheel ; I trudged the
planks a little way forward of him, stepping atli wart-
ships, or from side to side. The men, who were
getting their supper, passed in and out of the gal-
ley, carrying hook-pots of steaming tea. It was an
hour of liberty with tliem, the first of what is
called the " dog watches." The gloom of the sky
seemed to heighten the quietude that was upon the
ship. The sailors talked low, and their laughter
was sudden and short. All was silent aloft, the
sails stirless to the gushing of the long salt breath
of the east wind into the wide spaces of cloths, and
nothing sounded over the side save the dim crack-
ling and soft seething noises of waters broken under
the bow, and sobbing and simmering past, with
now and again a glad note like the fall of a fount-
ain.

The captain picked up a telescope that lay upon

A YANKEE RUSE. 7

the skylight, and crossing the deck took a view of
the approaching ship ; then approached me.

" She is an American," he said.

" Yes, sir."

" How do you know she is an American ? "

" By the light of the cotton in her canvas."

" Ay, and there are more signs than that. She
has pnt her helm over as though she would speak
us."

By five o'clock she was about a mile to a mile
and a quarter distant on our weather bow, at which
hour she had backed her maintop-sail and lay sta-
tionary upon the sea, rolling lightly and very state-
ly on the swell, the beautiful flag of her nation —
the stars and stripes — floating inverted from her
peak as a signal of distress. Both Captain Hoste
and I had searched her with a telescope, but we
could see no other signs of hfe aboard her than three
figures — one of which stood at the wheel — on her
short length of poop, and a single head as of a
sailor -vnievdng us over the bulwark-rail forward.

"We shortened sail as we slowly drew down, and
when within speaking distance Captain Hoste
hailed her.

The answer was — "For God's sake send a
boat! " Yet she had good boats of her own, and it

8 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

puzzled me, then, that she should request us to send,
seeing that there mvist be hands enough to enable
her to back the yards on the main.

Captain Hoste cried out, " But what is wrong
with you ? "

One of the figures on the poop or raised deck
tossed his hands in a gesture of agitation and dis-
tress, and in piteous, nasal Yankee accents re-
peated, " For God's sake send a boat ! ''

Captain Hoste gazed for a while, as though hesi-
tating. He then said to me, " Mr. Portlack, there
may be trouble aboard that ship, not to be guessed
at by merely looking at her and singing out. Take
a couple of hands in the jolly boat and ascertain
what is wanted," and so saying he bawled a com-
mand to the sailors forward to lay the maintop-sail
of the Ocean Ranger to the mast, while I called to
others to lay aft and lower away the jolly boat
that was suspended at irons called davits, a little
distance past the mizzen-rigging.

By this time a darker sliade had entered the
gloom of the sky, due partly to the sinking of 'the
hidden sun, and partly to the thickening of the
atmosphere as for rain. The sea, that ran in folds
of leaden hue, was merely wrinkled and crisped by
the wind, and I had no difficulty in making head

A YANKEE RUSE. 9

against the streaming foam-lined ripples and in lay-
ing the little boat alongside the American,

She was a tall, black ship with an almost straight
stem and of a clipper keenness of bow. Her stem-
head and quarters were rich with gilt devices ; her
towering skysail poles, the white trucks of which
gleamed like silver, seemed to pierce the dusky
surface of vapor above them. I sprang into the
mizzen channel and stepped from the rail on to the
poop.

Saving the man at the wheel there was but one
person on deck ; I sent a look forward but the ship
was deserted. This, I instantly thought to myself,
will be a case of mutiny. There has been brutality,
or, which is nearly as bad as brutality, bad food,
and the men have refused duty and gone below.

The person who received me was an American
skipper of a type that travel had rendered familiar.
His dress was remarkable for nothing but an im-
mense felt, sugar-loaf-shaped hat — a Fifth of No-
vember hat. He had a hard, yellow face with a
slight cast in one eye, and his long beard was
trimmed to the aspect of a goat's. I did not ob-
serve in him any marks of the agitation and dis-
tress which had echoed in his melancholy return
yell to us of " For God's sake send a boat ! " He

/

10 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

eyed me coolly and critically, running his eyes over
me from top to toe as though I were a man solicit-
ing work, and as thougli he were considering
whether to engage me or not. He then said,
" Good afternoon ! "

" Pray," said I, " what is wrong with you that
you asked us to send a boat ? "

" Step below," said he, moving to the little com-
panion hatch that conducted to the cabin.

" I am in a hurry," said I, with a glance round
the sea ; " it darkens quickly and I wish to return
to my ship. Pray let me hear your wants."

" This way, if you please," he answered, putting
his foot upon the ladder.

There was no help for it : I must follow him or
return to my ship without being able to satisfy the
questions which Captain Hoste would put to me.
As I stepped to the hatch it began to rain, but
without increase of wind; away to windward in
the east the sea was already shrouded with drizzle,
and already to leeward the Ocean Ranger loomed
with something of indistinctness in the thickening
atmosphere, her white sails showing in the gather-
ing dusk as she rolled like spaces of pale light flung
and eclipsed, flung and eclipsed again. The helms-
man at the wheel of the Yankee stared hard at me

A YANKEE RUSE. H

as I approached the hatch. On entering the cabin,
I found the captain witli an air of bustle in the act
of placing a bottle and glasses upon the table.

" Sit you down, sit you down," he called to me.
" Here is such a drop of rum as I know some folks
in your country would think cheap at a dollar a
glass."

" This is no time to drink," said I, " thanking
you all the same, nor is rum a liquor I am accus-
tomed to swallow at this hour. Pray tell me what
is wrong with you."

" Wal," said he, " if you won't drink my health,
then I just reckon there's nothen for me to do but
to drink yourn."

He poured out about a gill of neat rum which,
first smelling it, with a noisy smack of his lips he
tossed down. I looked at my watch, meaning to
give him three minutes and then be off, let his dis-
tress be what it might. The cabin was so gloomy
that our faces to each other could scarcely be more
than a glimmer. The evening shadow, darker yet
with rain and with the wet of the rain upon the
glass, lay upon the little skylight over the table ;
the windows overlooking the main deck were nar-
row apertures, and there was nothing of the ship to
be seen through them ; yet, even as the Yankee put

12 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

down liis glass, fetching a deep breath as he did so,
I seemed to hear a sound as of men softly treading,
accompanied by a voice apparently giving orders
in subdued tones, and by the noise of rigging care-
lessly dropped or hastily flung down.

" What ship is yourn ? " said the captain.

" The Ocean Eanger," I replied. " But you
are trifling with me, I think. I am not here to an-
swer that sort of questions. What do you want? "

" Wal," he answered, " I'll tell you what I want,
mister. I'm short of men, and men," he added,
with a touch of brutal energy in his tone, " I must
have, or, durn me, if the Ephriam Z. Jackson is
going to fetch ISTew York this side of Christmas
Day. I reckon," he continued, with an indiscrib-
able nasal drawl, " that your captain will be willing
to loan me two or three smart hands."

"I reckon," I replied, with some heat, "that he
will be willing to do nothing of the sort, if for no
other reason than because it's already a tight fit
with us in the matter of labor. If that is your
want — very sorry, I'm sure, that we should be un-
able to serve you," and I made a step toward the
companion ladder.

" Stop, mister," he cried, " how might you be
rated aboard your ship 1 "

A YANKEE RUSE. 13

" Second mate," I replied, pausing and looking
round at the man.

" Wal," said lie, coolly, " 1 don't mind telling
jou that my second mate's little better than a
sojer " — by which he meant " soldier " — " and if so
be as you are willing to stop just here, I'll break
him and send him forrards, where he'll be of some
use, and you shall take his place."

My astonishment held me silent for some mo-
ments. "Thank you," said I, "my captain is wait-
ing for me to return," and ^vith a stride I gained
the companion steps.

" Stop, mister ! " he shouted. " Men I must have,
and at sea when the pi-rate necessity boards a craft
po-liteness has to skip. You can stop if you like ;
but if you go you goes alone. I tell you I inust
have men. Two men ye've brought, and they're
going to stop, I calculate. In fact, we've filled on
the Ephriam Z. Jackson, and she's ong rout again,
mister. If you go — "

I stayed to hear no more, and in a bound gained
the deck. Sure enough they had swung the topsail
yard, and the ship, slowly gathering way, was break-
inor the wrinkles of the sea which underran her into
a little froth under her bows ! Five or six sailors
were moving about the decks. I rushed to the side

14 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

to look for my boat ; slie lay where I had left lier,
straining at the line, and wobbling and splashing
angrily as she was towed ; but there was nobody in
her. My two men were not to be seen. I shouted
their names, my heart beating with alarm and tem-
per, but either they were detained by force below,
or, influenced by the seaman's proverbial reckless
love of change, they had been swiftly and easily
coaxed by a handsome offer of dollars and of rum
into skulking out of sight until I should have left
the ship. My own vessel lay a mere smudge in the
rain away down upon the lee quarter, yet she was
not so indistinct but that I was able to make out
she had not yet filled on her topsail. I could
imagine Captain Hoste bewildered by the action of
the Yankee, not yet visited by a suspicion of the
fellow's atrocious duplicity, and waiting a while to
see what he intended to do.

I had followed the sea for many years, and
my profession had taught me speed in forming
resolutions. Had the weather been clear, even
though the time were an hour or tM'o later than it
was, I should have continued to demand my men
from this perfidious Yankee. I should have tried
him w^ith threats— have made some sort of a stand,
at all events, and taken my chance of what was

A YANKEE RUSE. • 15

to follow. But if I was to regain my sliip every
instant was precious. It was darkening into night
even as I paused for a few moments, half wild with
anger and the hurry of my thoughts. My men
were hidden ; and my suspicions, indeed my convic-
tion, assured me that I might shout for them till I
was hoarse to no purpose. Then, again, the Ameri-
can vessel was now at every beat of the pulse
widening the distance between her and the Ocean
Ranger. It was certain that my first business must
be to regain my own vessel wliile yet a httle day-
light lived, and leave the rest to Captain Hoste ; and
without further reflection, and without pausing to
look if the American captain had followed me out
of the cabin, I dropped into the mizzen channels and
thence into the jolly-boat that was towing close
under, and cast adrift the line that held the boat to
the ship's side. The little fabric dropped astern
tumbling and sputtering into the wide race of wake
of the ship that drove away from me into the dim-
ness of the rain-laden atmosphere in a large pale
cloud, which darkened on a sudden in a heavier fall
of wet that in a minute or two was hissing all about
me.

I threw an oar over the boat's stern, and, getting
her head round for my ship, fell to sculling her

16 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

with miglit and main. There was now a Httle
more wind, and the rain drove with a sharper
slant, but the small ridges of the sea ran softly
with the boat, melting with scarce more than a light
summer plaj of froth on either hand of me, as I
stood erect sculling at my hardest. The heavier
rush of rain had, however, by this time touched the
Ocean Hanger, and she now showed as vaguely
as a phantom down in the wet dusk. I could
barely discern the dim spaces of her canvas, mere
dashes of faint pallor upon the gloom, with the
black streak of her hull coming and going as my
boat rose and sank upon the swell.

I had not been sculling more than three or four
minutes when I perceived that Captain Hoste had
gathered way upon his ship. She was, in fact,
forging ahead fast and rounding away into the west
in pursuit of the American, leaving my boat in con-
sequence astern of her out upon her starboard quar-
ter. It was very evident that the boat was not to
be seen from the Ocean Ranger — that Captain
Hoste imagined me still on board the American, and
that, observing the Yankee to be sailing away, he
concluded it was about time to follow him — though
this was a pursuit I had little doubt Iloste would
speedily abandon, for it was not hard to guess that

A YANKEE RUSE. 17

the Ephraini Z. Jackson would outsail the Ocean
Ranger by two feet to one.

The consternation that seized me was so excess-
ive that my hands grasped the oar motionlessly, as
though my arms had been withered. I could do
no more than stand gajiing over my shoulder at the
receding ships. As to shouting — why, already my
vessel had put a long mile and a half between her
and my boat ; and though 1 could not tell amid the
haze of the rain and the shadow of the evening
what canvas she was carrying, I might gather that
Captain Hoste was pressing her, by the heel of her
tall dim outline, and by the occasional glance of
the froth of her wake in the thickness under her
counter.

I threw my oar inboards and sat down to collect
my mind and think. My consternation, as I have
said, was almost paralyzing. The suddenness of
the desperate and dreadful situation in which I
found myself benumbed my faculties for a while. I
was without food ; I was without drink ; I was also
without mast, sail, or compass, in a little open boat
in the heart of a wide surface of sea, the night at
hand— a night of storm, as I might fear when I cast
my eyes up at the wet, near, scowling face of the
sky and then looked round at the fast-darkening

18 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

sea, narrowed to a small liorizon by the gloomy
walls of rain, in the western quarter of which the
American had already vanished, while my own ship,
as I stood straining my gaze at the pale lilotcli she
made, slowly melted out like one's breath upon a
looking-glass. Yet, heavy as my heart was with
the horror of my position, I do not remember that
I was then sensible of despair in an}^ degree. AVlien
my wits in some measure returned, I thought to
myself, rascal as the Yankee captain has proved
himself, he surely will not be such a villain as to
leave me to perish out here. He wdll know, by tlie
Ocean Ranger pursuing him, that Captain Hoste
has not seen my boat. Then he will shorten sail to
enable the Ocean Ranger to approach, and hail
Captain Hoste to tell him that I am adrift some-
where astern ; so that at any hour I may expect to
see the loom of my ship close at hand in search of
me, within earshot, with a dozen pairs of eyes on
the lookout and a dozen pairs of ears straining for
my first cry.

That my drift might be as inconsiderable as
possible, I lashed the two oars of the boat together,
made them fast to the painter, threw them over-
board and rode to them. But when this was done
it was dark, I may say pitch dark ; the rain fell

A YANKEE RUSE. 19

heavily and continuously, and the wind sang
through it in a sort of shrill wailing such as I had
never before taken notice of in the wind at sea,
and this noise put a new and distinct horror into
my situation because of my loneliness. The froth
of the streaming ripples broke bare and ghastly,
and the run of the waters against the boat's sides
tilled the atmosphere with notes as of drowning
sobbing. The cold of the night was made piercing
by the wet of it and the quarter whence the wind
blew. I was soaked to the skin, and sat hugging
my shuddering body, forever staring around into
the blind obscurity, and forever seeing nothing
more than the mocking and fleeting flash of the
near run of froth.

The breeze held steady, but something of weight
came into the heave of the little ridges, and from
time to time the chop of the boat's bows as she
chucked into a hollow, meeting the next bit of a
sea before she had time to fairly rise to it ; from
time to time, I say, some handfuls of spray would
come slinging out of the darkness forward into
my face, but nothing more than that happened
during those hours of midnight gloom. Though
never knowing what the next ten minutes might
bring forth, I had made up my mind that I was

20 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

to be drowned, or if not drowned then that I was
doomed to some dreadful ending of insanity which
should be brought about by hunger, by thirst, by
that awful form of mental anguish which is called
despair, and that if I were spared to see the sun
rise I should never see him set again.

But the night passed — the night passed, and I
remember thanking God that it was an August
night, which signified, comparatively speaking,
short hours of darkness. It passed, and the break-
ing dawn found me crouching and hugging myself
as I had been crouching and hugging myself during
the black time that was now ending, staring in my
loneliness, and with a heart that felt broken, over
the low gunwale of the boat at the rim of the sea
which slowly stole out all round me in a line of ink
against the ashen slant of the sky. It had ceased to
rain, but the morning broke sullen and gloomy ; the
heavens of the complexion they had worn when the
night had darkened upon them ; the wind no
stronger tlian before, yet singing past my ears with
a harsh salt shrillness that had something squall-like
in the keen-edged tone of it each time the head of a
swell threw me up to the full sweep.

I stood up, weak and trembling, and searched
the ocean, but there was nothing to be seen. Again

A YANKEE RUSE. 21

and again I explored the horizon with eyes ren-
dered dim by my long vigil and by the smarting
of the salt which lay in a white crust abont the eye-
lids and in the hollows, but there was nothing more
to behold than the gray ocean, freckled with foam,
throbbing desolately in the cold gray light to its
confines narrowed by the low seat from which I
gazed.

I had now no hope whatever of being searched
for and picked up ])y my own ship. I did not
doubt that she had pursued the Yankee, w^ho had
outsailed her and been lost sight of by her in the
darkness, and that Captain Hoste, understanding
the villainous trick that had been played upon him,
but assuming that I, as well as the tM'o men, had
been detained by the American, had long ago
shifted his course and proceeded on his voyage. I
looked at my watch, but I had forgotten to wind it
"overnight, and it had stopped. By and by I reck-
oned the hour to be between eight and nine. There
was no sun to tell the time by. Not until then was
I sensible of hunger and thirst. Now on a sudden
I felt the need of eating and drinking, and the
mere circumstance of there being nothing to eat
and drink — and more particularly to drhik — fired
my imagination, which at once converted thirst into

22 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

a consuming pain, and I put my lips to my wet
sleeve and sucked ; but the moisture was bitter, bit-
ter with salt, and I flung myself down into the bot-
tom of the boat with a cry to God that, if I was to
perish, my agony might come quickly and end
quickly,

I believe I lay in a sort of stupor for some hour
or more ; then noticing a slight brightening in the
heavens directly overhead, as though due to the thin-
ning of the body of vapor just there, I staggered on
to my feet, and no sooner was my head above the
boat's gunwale than I spied a vessel steering direct-
ly for me, as I was immediately able to perceive.
How far distant she was I could not have said, but
my sailor's eye instantly witnessed the course she
was pursuing by the aspect of her canvas, that was
of a brilliant whiteness, so that at first I imagined
her to be the American in search of me, until, after
viewing her for some time steadfastly, I perceived
that she was a large topsail schooner, apparently a
yacht, heeling from the wind, and sliding nimbly
through the water, as one might tell by the rapidity
with which the whole fabric of her enlarged.

The sight gave me back all my strength. I
sprang into the bows, dragged the oars inboard, and
to one of them attached my coat, which I M'ent to

A YANKEE RUSE. 23

work to floiirisli, making the wet serge garment

rattle like tlie fly of a flag as I swept it round and

round high above my head. Within half an hour

she was close to me, with her square canvas aback

to deaden her way, the heads of a immber of people

dotting the line of her rail— a sliaj)ely and graceful

vessel indeed, with a band of yellow metal along

her waterline, dully glowing over the white edge of

froth, as though some light of western sunshine

slept upon her, her canvas gleaming like satin, a

spark or two in her glossy length where her cabin

portholes were, and the brassy gleam of some gilt

effigy under her bowsprit, from which curved to

the masthead the lustrous pinions of her jibs and
stavsail.

A red-headed man wearing a cap with a naval

peak stood abaft the main rigging in company with

otliers, and as the beautiful little vessel came softly

swaying and floating down over the heave of the

swell to my boat, he cried out, " Can you catch hold

of the end of a line ? "

" Ay, ay," I answered, in a weak voice, lifting
my liand.

" Then look out ! " he bawled.

A seaman grasping a coil of rope sprang on top
of the bulwarks and sent the fakes of the line spin-

24 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

ning to me. I canglit the end with a trembling
grasp and took a tnrn ronnd a thwart, but not till
then could I have imagined how weak I was, for
even as I held the rope my knees yielded and I
sank into the bottom of the boat in a posture of
supplication, half swooning. The next moment the
little fabric had swung in alongside the schooner ;
I was grasped by some sailors and lifted on board.

" Let the boat go adrift, she's of no use to us,"
the red-headed man cried out.

Another standing near him exclaimed with a
Btrong foreign accent, ])ut in good English, " Stop !
what name is written in her ? "

Some one answered, " The Ocean Ranger, Lon-
don."

" Let that be noted, and then let her go," said
the voice with the foreign accent.

In this brief while I stood, scarcely seeing
though I could hear, supported by the muscular
grip of a couple of the seamen who had dragged me
over the side,

" Bring a chair," exclaimed the red-headed man.

"ISTo," cried the other with a foreign accent,
" let him be taken into the cabin and fed. Do not
you see that he perishes of hunger and of thirst
and of cold ? "

A YANKEE RUSE. 25

On this I was gently compelled into motion by
the two seamen, who conveyed me to an after hatch
and thence down into a little interior that glittered
with mirrors, and that was luminous and fragrant
besides with flowers. I was still so much dazed as
hardly to be fully conscious of what I was doing.
Sudden joy is as confounding as sudden grief, and
the delight of this deliverance from my horrible
situation was as disastrous to my wits (weakened by
the fearful night I had passed through) as had been
the shock to them when I found myself adrift in
the boat on the previous evening. The two seamen
quitted the cabin, leaving me seated at the table,
but their place was immediately taken by the red-
headed man, by the gentleman with the foreign
accent,- and a minute later by a third person, a short,
square, hook-nosed, black-browed, inky-bearded fel-
low. They viewed me for a while in silence ; one
of them then called "Tom," and a negro boy
stepped through a door at the foremost end of the
cabin.

" Bring brandy and water ; also some cold meat
and white biscuit. Bring the l)randv first."

Who spoke I did not know. A tumbler of
grog was placed in my hand, but my arm trembled
so violently that I was unalile to raise the glass to

20 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

my lips. Some one tlierenpon grasped my wrist and
enabled me to drink, which I did greedily, mutter-
ing, as I recollect, a broken ^' Thank God ! thank
you, gentlemen," as I put the glass quivering upon
the table.

'' How long have you been in this plight ? " in-
quired the red-headed man in a voice whose harsh-
ness and coarseness, half demented as I was, I re-
member noticing.

'' Ask him no questions yet," exclaimed one of
the others. " Let him have meat, dry clothes, and
sleep, and he will rally. Ay ! he will rally, for he
has a lively look."

The effect of the l)randy was magical. It clari-
fied my sight as though some friendly hand had
swept a cobweb from each eyeball. It filled my
body with strong pulses, and enabled me to hold
my head erect. But by this time the negro boy
had reappeared with a plate of cold boiled beef and
a dish of biscuit, and I fell to — eating with the ani-
mal-like rage of starvation. I devoured every scrap
that was set before me, and then with a steady hand
raised and drained a second glass of grog that had
been mixed by the man with the foreign accent.
And now I felt able to converse.

" Gentlemen," said I, making a staggering effort

A YANKEE RUSE. 27

to bow to them, " I thank von from the bottom of
my heart for rescning me from a horrible death.
I thank you gentlemen for this bitterly-needed re-
freshment."

" You are soaked to the skin," said the man
with the foreign accent. " You will tell us your
story when you are dry and comfortable. Captain
Dopping, you can lend this poor man some dry
linen and clothes 'i "

" Ay ! " responded the other, in his coarse deter-
mined voice. " Are ye able to stand i "

" I think so," I replied.

I rose, but observing that I faltered, he came
round to where I was swaying, grasped me by the
arm and led me to a little cabin alongside the door
through which the negro boy had emerged. In this
cabin were two shallow bunks or sleeping-shelves,
one on top of the other. The room was lighted by
a circular porthole, and by what is called a bull's-eye
— a piece of thick glass let into the deck overhead.
My companion rummaged a locker, and tossing a
number of garments into the lower Inink, bade me
take my pick and shift myself and then turn in,
and, saying this in a harsh, fierce way, he withdrew.

I removed my wet clothes, and grateful beyond
all expression was the comfort of warm dry apparel

28 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

to my skin, that for more than twelv^e lioiirs had
been soaked with rain and steeped in brine. I then
stretched my length in the lower sleeping-shelf, and,
after putting np a prayer of gratitude for my deliv-
erance, closed my eyes and in a few minutes fell
asleep.

I slept until about three o'clock in the after-
noon. On waking I found the interior bright with
sunshine. I lay for a little, thinking and taking a
view of the cabin. My faculties, refreshed by
sleep, were sharp in me. I could remember clearly
and realize keenly. The disaster which had be-
fallen me was a great professional blow. It had
deprived me of my ship, and robbed me of an ap-
pointment I had been forced to wait some tedious
months to obtain. With the ship had gone all my
clothes, all my eifects, everything, in short, I pos-
sessed in the wide world, saving a few pounds
which I had left in a bank at home. The Ocean
Eanger was bound on a voyage that would keep her
away from England for two years and a half, per-
haps three years ; so that for, let me say, three
years all that I owned in the world, saving my few
pounds, would be as utterly lost to me as though it
had gone to the bottom.

While I thus lay musing, the door of the berth

A YANKEE RUSE. 29

opened, and the red-headed man — Captain Dopping
— entered. Having my eyes clear in my head now,
I immediately observed that he was a freckled, red-
haired, staring man, with big protruding moist blue
eyes and scarlet \vhiskers ; all of his front teeth but
two or three were gone, and the gaps in his gums
gave his face, when he parted his lips, the grin of a
skull.

I got out of the l)unk when he entered.
" How do you feel now 'i " said he, eying me in
a hard, deliberate, unwinking way.
" Refreshed and recovered," said I.
He ran his gaze over my figure to observe what
garments belonging to him I had arrayed myself in,
then said, " What is your name ? "
" James Portlack."
" What are you ? "

" What was I, you must ask," said I, with a
melancholy shake of the head. " Second mate of
the bark Ocean Ranger," and I told him briefly
of the abominable trick which the Yankee captain
had played off on Captain Hoste, and which had
resulted in leaving me adrift in the desperate and
dying condition I had been rescued from.

" A cute dodge, truly," said he, without any ex-
hibition of astonishment or dislike, nay, with a hint

30 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

in his air of liaving found something to rehsh in
the American's device. "It is what a Welshman
would call ' clobber.' This is a yarn to tickle Don
Christoval."

" Who is Don Christoval ? " said I.

" He is Don Christoval del Padron."

" The owner of this schooner?"

He gave a hard smile, but returned no answer,

" What is the name of this vessel ? " I asked.

" La Casandra."

" Where are you from ? "

" Cadiz."

" To what port? " said I, with anxiety.

He gave another hard smile, and then, eying me
all over afresh, exclaimed, "Come along on deck,
Don Christoval and Don Lazarillo will be wanting
to see you, now you're awake."

I asked him to lend me a cap, not knowing
what had become of mine, and followed him
through the small ])rilliant cabin into which I had
been conducted by the two seamen. I had a quick
eye, and took note of many things in a moment or
two. The cabin was peculiarly furnished, that is,
for a sea-going interior. It gleamed with hanging
mirrors ; the sides were embellished with pictures,
such as might hang upon the walls of a room

A YANKEE RUSE. 31

ashore ; tliere were little sofas and arm-chairs, of a
kind you might see in a drawing-room, but not in
the cabin of a vessel, whether a pleasure-craft or
not. In short, it was evident that a portion of the
furniture of a house had been employed for fitting
out this interior. But where the vessel herself
showed, I mean the ceiling or upper deck, the sides,
the planks left visible by the carpet — tliere all was
plain and even rough, by which signs I might know
that La Casandra was not a yacht, despite the shin-
ing of the mirrors and the gilt of the picture-
frames, the rich carpet under foot, the crimson vel-
vet sofas and chairs.

I followed Captain Dopping up the narrow
companion-steps, and gained the deck. The rain
was gone, the gloomy sky had rolled away down
the western sea-line, and the afternoon sun shone
gloriously in a sky of blue piebald with stately sail-
ing masses of swollen cream-colored vapor, which
studded the blue surface of the sea with island-like
spaces of violet shadow. A pleasant breeze was
blowing, and it was warm with tlie sunshine. The
schooner was under all the canvas it was possible to
spread upon her, and how fast she was sailing I
might know by the white line of her wake, I had
no eyes at the instant for anything but the horizon,

32 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

tlie whole girdle of which I rapidly scanned with
some wild silly notion in me of catching a sight of
the cloths of the Ocean Kanger, that in searching
for me might have been navigated some leagues to
the north.

CHAPTER II.

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA.

The two foreigners, as I might suppose them
to be — the two gentlemen who had talked to me and
viewed me in the cabin before I went to the cap-
tain's berth — these men were pacing the sand-colored
planks of the quarter-deck arm in arm, cigars in
their mouths, as I emerged ; but, on seeing me, they
came to a halt. One was a truly noble-looking fel-
low, rising a full inch taller than six feet, and of a
magnificently proportioned shape. This was the
man who had addressed me in good English, but
with a foreign accent. He was, besides, an exceed-
ingly handsome person, his complexion very dark,
his eyes of the dead blackness of the Indian's, but
soft and glo^\^ng ; he wore a large heavy mustache,
black as ink, and curling to his ears ; his teeth were
strong, large, and of an ivory whiteness. Plain
sailor-man as I was, used to the commonplace char-

34 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

acter and countenance of the mariner, I was with-
out any art in the decipliering of the mind by gaz-
ing at the lineaments of the human face. To me
tliis person offered himself as a noble, handsome
man, of imposing presence, of a beauty even stately ;
but when I think of him now in the light of that
larger knowledge of human nature which years
have taught me, when I recall his face, I say, I am
conscious of having missed something in the ex-
pression of it which must have helped me to a tol-
erably accurate perception of the real character of
this schooner's errand, when the " motive " of her
voyage was explained to me.

His companion was a short man, a true Spaniard
in his looks ; his large hooked nose, his searching,
restless, brilliant black eyes, his mustaches and
short black beard might well have qualified him to
sit for a picture of Cervantes, according to such
prints of that great author as I have seen. They
were both well dressed — too well dressed, indeed.
They wore overcoats richly furred, velvet coats be-
neath, splendid waistcoats, and so forth. The fin-
gers of the shorter man sparkled with precious
stones. There was a stout gold chain round his
neck, and a costly brooch in his cravat. They both
fastened a penetrating gaze upon me for some mo-

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA. 35

ments, and exchanged a few sentences in Spanish
before addressing me.

" The gentleman's name is Portlack — Mr. Port-
lack, Don Christoval," said Captain Dopping:
" he was second mate of a bark named the Ocean
Ranger. He was hocussed, as the Pikejs (gypsies)
say, by an American captain. He'll tell you the
story, sir."

" How do you feel ? " said Don Christoval.

" Perfectly recovered, I thank you," said I.

" I am glad. We were not too soon. I believe
that another twenty-four hours of your desperate
situation must have killed you," said this tall Don,
delivering his words slowly, and looking very state-
ly, and speaking in English so correctly that I won-
dered at his foreign accent.

" Yot ees secon' mate ? " inquired the shorter
man, pronouncing the words with difficulty.

" Why, you might call it second lieutenant, Don
Lazarillo," replied Captain Dopping.

" It is a position of trust ; it is a position of
distinction on board ship ? " exclaimed Don Chris-
toval.

" Oh yes," said Captain Dopping.

" Do you know navigation ? " asked the tall
Don.

36 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" I liold a master's certificate," I replied, smiling.

" Explain," said Don Lazarillo sharply, as though
his mind were under some constant strain of un-
healthy anxiety.

" I do not speak a word of Spanish," said I,
turning to Captain Dopping.

" ]S[o need for it," said he, in his harsh accents.
" A master's certificate, Don Christoval, enables the
holder of it to take charge of a ship, and in order to
take charge of a ship a man is supposed to know
everything that concerns the profession of the
sea."

" Explain," cried Don Lazarillo with impatience.

His tall companion translated ; on which the
other, nodding vehemently, stroked his mustaches
while he again surveyed me from head to foot, let-
ting his eyes, full of fire, settle with the most search-
ing look that can be imagined upon my face. I
caught Don Christoval exchanging a glance with
Captain Dopping. There was a brief pause while
the tall Don lighted his cigar. He then said, with
a smile :

" You have lost your ship, sir ? "

" I have, I am sorry to say."

" What will you do, sir ? "

" It is for you to dispose of me. I should be

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 3f

glad to make myself nsefuJ to you mitil you trans-
fer me or land me."

" But then— but then ? "

" Then I must endeavor to obtain another berth,"
said I.

" Explain," cried Don Lazarillo.

Don Christoval spoke to him in Spanish.

" You are a gentleman by birth ? " said the tall
Don.

" My father was a clergyman," I answered.

" Yes, sir, that is very good. Your speech tells
me you are genteel. To speak English well you
must be genteel. Education will enable you to speak
English grammatically, but it will not help you to
pronounce it properly. For example, a man vul-
garly born, who is educated too, will omit his h's,
and he will neglect his g's. He will say nothin', and
he will say 'ouse instead of house. Yes, I know it
— I know it," said he, smiling. " Well, you shall
tell me now all about your adventure."

This I did. He occasionally stopped me while
he interpreted to his companion, who listened to him
with eager attention, while he would also strain his
ears with his eyes sternly fixed upon my face when
I spoke. When I had made an end, Don Christo-
val drew Captain Dopping to him by a backward

38 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

motion of his liead, and, after addressing him in low
tones, he took Don Lazarillo's arm, and the pair of
them fell to patrolling the deck.

" "We shall sling a hammock for you under the
main hatch," said Captain Dopping, walking up
to me. " Sorry we can't accommodate you aft.
There's scarce room for a rat in my corner, let alone
two men."

" Any part of the schooner will serve to sling a
hammock in for me," said I.

" You will take your meals with me in the cabin,"
said he. " I eat when the two gentlemen have done."

" Where does your mate live ? " said I.

" I have no mate," he answered. " We were in
a hurry, and could not find a man."

He eyed me somewhat oddly as he spoke, as
though to mark the effect of his words.

" But is there no one to help you to keep a look-
out?"

" Ay ! a seaman," he answered, carelessly. " But
now that you're aboard we will be able to relieve
him from that duty."

" Whatever you put me to," said I, " you will
find me as willing at it as gratitude can make a

man."

He roughly nodded, and asked me what part of

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 39

England I came from. I answered that I was born
near Guildford.

"I hail from Deal," said he. "Do you know
Deal ? "

" Well," I answered ; and spoke of some people
whom I had visited there ; gave him the names of
the streets, and of a number of boatmen I had con-
versed with during my stay at the salt and shingly
place. This softened him. It was marvelous to
observe how the magic of memory, the tenderness
of recollected association humanized the coarse,
harsh, bold, and staring looks of this scarlet-haired
man.

" But," said I, " you have not 3^et told me where
this schooner is bound to."

" You will hear all about it," he answered, with
his usual air returning to him.

I was not a little astonished by this answer. Had
the schooner sailed on some piratic expedition?
"Was there some colossal undertaking of smuggling
in contemplation ? But though piracy, to be sure,
still flourished, it was hardly to be thought of in
relation with those northern seas toward which the
schooner was heading ; while as for smuggling, if
the four seamen whom I counted at work about the
vessel's deck comprised — with the fifth man, who

40 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

was at her helm — the whole of the crew, there was
nothing in any theory of a contraband adventure to
solve the problem submitted by Captain Dopping's
reticence.

He left me abruptly, and walked forward and
addressed one of the men, apparently speaking of
the job the fellow was upon. I listened for that
note of bullying, for that tone of habitual brutal
temper, which I should have expected to hear in
him when he accosted the seamen, and was sur-
prised to find that he spoke as a comrade rather
than as a captain ; with something even of careless
familiarity in his manner as he addressed the man.

I had now an opportunity for the first time
since I came on deck to inspect the schooner. It
was easy to see that she had never been built as a
yacht ; her appearance, indeed, suggested that in her
day she had been employed as a slaver. She was
old, but very powerfully constructed, and seemingly
still as fine a sea-boat as was at that time to be
encountered on the ocean. Her bulwarks were high
and immensely thick ; the fore-part of her had a rise,
or " spring " as it is called, which gave a look of
domination and defiance to her round bows which at
the forefoot narrowed into a stem of knife-like sharp-
ness. She was very loftily rigged and expanded an

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA. 4I

enormous l)readtli of mainsail. I had never before
seen so long a gaff, and the boom when amidships
forked far out over the stern. Her decks were very
clean but grayish with bi-ine and years of hard
usao;e. I noticed that she carried a small boat hanc;-
ing in davits on the starboard side, and a large boat
abaft the little caboose or kitchen that stood like a
sentry-box forward. This boat, indeed, resembled a
man-of-war's cutter — such a long and heavy fabric
as one would certainly not think of looking for on
board a craft of the size of La Casandra. It was
my sailor's eye that carried my mind to this detail.
'No man but a sailor, and perhaps a suspicious sailor
as I then was, standing as I did upon the deck of a
vessel whose destination was still a secret to me,
would have noticed that boat.

The five of a crew were all of them Englishmen,
strong, hearty fellows. I inspected them curiously,
but could find nothing in them that did not suggest
the plain, average, honest merchant sailor. They
were well clothed for men of their class, habited in
tlie jackets, round hats and wide trousers of the
Jacks of my period, and I took notice that though
their captain stood near them they worked as though
without sense of his presence, occasionally calling
a remark one to another, and laughing, but not nois-

42 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

ily, as if what discipline there was on board the
schooner existed largely in the crew's choice of
behavior. These and other points I remarked, but
nothing that I saw helped me to any sort of conclu-
sion as to the destination of the little ship or the
motive of the cruise. All that I could collect was
that here was a schooner bearing a Spanish name
and owned or hired by one or both of those Span-
iards, who continued to pace the quarter-deck arm-in-
arm, but manned, so far as I could see, by a com-
pany of five Englishmen and a negro lad, and com-
manded by an English skipper.

I walked a little way forward, the better to
observe the vessel's rig at the fore, and on my
approaching the galley, a fellow put his head out of
it — making a sixth man now visible. He kept his
head out to stare at me. Many ugly men have I
met in my time, but never so hideous a creature as
that. His nationality I could not imagine, though
it was not long before I learned that he was a Span-
iard. His coal-black hair fell in a shower of greasy
snake-like ringlets upon his back and shoulders.
One eye was whitened by a cataract or some large
pearly blotch, and the other seemed to me to possess
as malevolent an expression as could possibly deform
a pupil unnaturally large, and still further disfigured

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA. 43

by a very net-work of Llood-red lines. His nose
appeared to have been leveled flat with his face at
the bridge by a blow, leaving the lower portion of
it standing straight out in the shape of the thick
end of a small broken carrot. His lips of leather,
his complexion of chocolate, his three or four yel-
low fangs, his mat of close cropped whiskers, coarse
as horse-hair, his apparel of blue shirt open at the
neck and revealing a little gilt or gold crucifix, a
pair of tarry leather trousers, carpet slippers, and the
remains of an old Scotch cap that lay rather than
sat upon his hair ; all these points combined in pro-
ducing one of the most extraordinary figures that
had ever crossed my path — a path, I may say, that
in my time had carried me into many wild scenes,
and to the contemplation of many strange surprising
sights.

While this prodigy of ugliness and I were star-
ing at each other, the caj^tain came across the deck
to me.

" AVhat do you think of this schooner ? " he
said.

" She is a very good schooner. She is old — per-
haps thirty years old. I believe she has carried
slaves in her time."

" I know it," he replied, with a strong nod, to

44 THE TRxiGEDY OB^ IDA NOBLE.

which his furiously red hair seemed to impart a
character of hot temper.

"I have seen," said I, "liaiidsomer men than
yonder beauty who is staring at me from the galley
door."

" Ay. He is good enough to shut up in a box
and to carry about as a show. He is cook and
steward. His name is Juan de Mariana. He cooks
well, and is or has been a domestic in Don Lazaril-
lo's establishment."

" How many go to your crew ? " said I, ques-
tioning him with an air of indifference now that I
found he was disposed to be communicative.

" Eight."

" The number includes you and the cook and
the nigger lad ? "

He nodded, and looked at me suddenly, as
though about to deliver something on the top of
his mind, then checked himself, and pulling out his
watch, exclaimed : " I understand you are willing to
serve as mate of this vessel,"

" I am willing to do anything. Do not I owe
my life to you all ? "

" Well," said he, " that may be settled now. It
is Don Christoval's wish. As to pay, him and me
will go into that matter with you by and by."

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 45

I opened my eyes at the sound of the word^ay,
but made no remark. It was a grateful sound, as
you will suppose, to a man who had as good as
lost everything save what he stood up in, and who,
when he got ashore, might find it very hard to ob-
tain another berth. The two Spanish gentlemen
had left the deck. Captain Dopping , said : "Step
aft with me," and we walked as far as the cabin
skylight, where facing about the captain called out,
" Trapp, South, Butler, Scott, lay aft, my lads. I
have a word to say to you." He then turned to the
fellow who stood at the helm and exclaimed, " Tubb,
you'll be listening."

The seamen quitted their several employments
and came to the quarter-deck. The Spanish cook
stepped out of the galley to hearken, and a moment
later the ebony face of the negro showed in the
square of the forecastle hatch The sailors looked
as though they pretty well guessed what was com-
ing.

" Lads," said Captain Dopping, placing his hand
upon my arm, " this here is Mr. James Portlack.
lie was second mate of the bark. Ocean Hanger,
a ship I know."

" And I know her, too," said one of the men.

"Mr. Portlack," continued Captain Dopping,

4:6 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" holds a master's certificate, which is more than I
do, and he tops me by that. But I'm yom* captain,
and your captain I remain. Mr. Portlack consents
to act as the mate of the Casandra. Is this aerree-
able to you, lads ? "

" Ay, ay ; agreeable enough," was the general
answer.

" "Well, then, Butler, you're displaced, d'ye see ?
No call for you to relieve me any longer."

" And a good job too," said the man, a heavy,
sturdy, powerfully built fellow with small, honest,
glittering blue eyes, and immense bushy whiskers ;
" there was nothin' said about my taking charge of
the deck in the agreement."

"Well, you're out of it," exclaimed Captain
Dopping, " and the ship's company's stronger by a
hand, which is as it should be. D'ye hear me,
cook ? "

" Yasli, yash, I hear all right, capitan," answered
the swarthy creature from the door of his galley,
contorting his countenance into the aspect of a hor-
rid face beheld by one in a high fever, in his strug-
gle to articulate in English.

" That'll do, my lads," said the captain.

The men leisurely rounded and went forward
again. There was nothing unusual in this proceed-

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 47

ing. It -was customary, it maj still be customary at
sea, to invite tlie decision of tlie crew before elect-
ing a man to fill a vacant post as first or second
mate. All that I found singular lay in tlie behav-
ior of the men. There was sometliing in their bear-
ing I find it impossible to convey — a suggestion of
resolution struggling with reluctance, or it might be
that they gave me the impression of fgllows who
had entered upon an undertaking without wholly
understanding its nature or without fully believing
in the sincerity of its promoters. But be their
manner what it might, its efl:"ect upon me was to
greatly sharpen my curiosity as to the object of this
schooner's voyage from Cadiz to the north as she
was now heading.

I said to Captain Dopping, " I M'ill take charge
at once if you wish to go below*"

" Very \vell," said he, ''■ I will relieve you at
four bells, and that will give you the first watch to
stand," by which he meant the watch from eight
o'clock till midnight.

" But I do not know your destination," said I.
" How is the schooner to be steered ? "

" As she goes," said he with a significant nod,
angry with the scarlet flash of hair and whisker
which accompanied it.

48 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

"Eiglit," said I, and fell to pacing the deck,
while he disappeared down the companion-way.

Athirst as I was for information, I was deter-
mined that my curiosity should not be suspected.
Be the errand of this little ship what it might, I was
always my own master, able to say " No " to any
proposals I should object to, though taking care to
give due effect by willingness in all honest direc-
tions to the gratitude excited in me by my deliver-
ance. I would find the fellow at the helm watch-
ing me with an expression on his weather-darkened
face that was the same as saying he was willing to
tell all he knew, but I took no notice of him, con-
tenting myself with merely observing the vessel's
course and seeing that she was kept to it. The
voices of the two Spaniards and Captain Dopping
rose through the little skylight, one of which lay
open. They spoke in English, and occasionally I
heard my name pronounced with now and then a
sharp hissing " Explain " from Don Lazarillo, but I
did not catch, nor did I endeavor to catch, any
syllables of a kind to furnish me with a sense of
their discourse.

All this afternoon the weather continued rich,
glowing, summer-like. One seemed to taste the
aromas of the land in the eastern gushing of the

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASAXDRA. 49

blue and sparkling breeze. The three white spires
of a tall ship glided like stars along the western
rim, but though we w^ere in the great ocean high-
way nothing else showed during the remainder of
the hours of light. Beyond a little feeling of stiff-
ness and of aching in my joints I was sensible of no
bad results of my night-long bitter and perilous
exposure in the jolly-boat of the Ocean Ranger.
I had, indeed, been too long seasoned by the sea to
suffer grievously from an experience of this sort.
Night after night off the black and howling Horn,
off the stormy headland of Agulhas, amid mount-
ainous seas, in frosty hurricanes whose biting breath
was sharpened yet by hills and islands of ice glanc-
ing dimly through the snow-thickened darkness, I
had kept the deck, I had helped to stow the canvas
aloft, I had toiled at the pumps, waist-high in
water, my hair crackling with ice, my hands without
feeling. No ! I was too seasoned to suffer severely
from the after-effects of exposure in an open boat
throughout an August night in the Portuguese
parallels.

At five o'clock, when I glanced through tlie
skylight, I spied tlie negro lad named Tom laying
the cloth in the little cabin. Occasionally a whiff
of cooking, strong with onions or garlic, would

50 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

come blowing aft in some back-dranglit out of the
canvas. I judged that the crew were well fed by
observing one of them step out of the galley and
enter the forecastle, bearing a smoking round of
boiled beef and a quantity of potatoes in their
skins ; then by seeing another follow him with
pots of coffee or tea, two or three loaves of bread,
and other articles of food which I could not
distinguish. Fare so substantial and bountiful
seemed to my fancy a very unusual entertainment
for a forecastle tea or " supper," as the last meal at
sea is commonly called.

I found myself Avatching everything that passed
before me with growing curiosity. The hideous
cook Mariana, followed by the negro boy bearing
dishes, came aft with the cabin dinner, and present-
ly^ when I peeped again through the skylight as I
trudged the deck in the pendulum walk of the look-
out at sea, I perceived the two Spaniards at table.
The several dyes of wines in decanters blended with
the brilliance of silver — or of what resembled
silver — and other decorative details of flowers and
fruit, and the square of the skylight framed a pictur-
esquely festal scene. It was possible to peep with-
out being observed. The Spaniards talked inces-
santly ; their speech rose in a melodious hum ; for to

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 51

pronounce Spanish is, to my ear, to utter music.
But the majestic dialect was as Greek to me. Don
Lazarillo gesticulated with vehemence, and I never
glanced at the skylight without observing him in
the act of draining his glass. Don Christoval was
less demonstrative. He was slow and stately in
his movements, and when he flourished his arm or
clasped his hands, or leaned back in his chair to re-
volve the point of his mustache with long, large,
but most shapely fingers, he made one think of
Bome fine actor in an opera scene.

It was six o'clock by the time they had dined,
and at this hour the seamen taking the privilege of
the " dog watch " — but, indeed, it was all privilege
from morning to night in that schooner — were pac-
ing the deck forward, four of them, every man
smoking his pipe — the fifth man being at the tiller.
I might now make sure that there went but five sea-
men to this ship's company. The ugly cook leaned
in the door of his galley puffing at a cigarette. The
sun was low, his light crimson ; his fan-shaped wake
streamed in scarlet glory under him to the very
shadow of the schooner, and the little fabric, slightly
leaning from the soft and pleasant breeze, fioated
through the rose-colored atmosphere, her sails of
the tincture of delicate cloth of gold, her bright

52 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

masts veined with fire, her shrouds as she gently
rolled catching the western light until thej burned
out upon tlie eye as though of polished brass.

The two Spaniards arrived on deck, each with an
immensely long cigar in his mouth. Don Christo-
val addressed me pleasantly in his excellent English.
He asked me with an air of grand courtesy if I
now felt perfectly well, inquired the speed of the
schooner, my opinion of her, my experiences of the
Bay of Biscay in this month of August, and inquired
if I was acquainted with the coast of England, and
especially with that part comprised between St.
Bees Head and Morecambe Bay. His friend eagerly
listened, keeping his fiery eyes fastened upon my
face, and whenever I had occasion to say more than
"yes" or "no," he would call upon Don Christoval
to interpret.

Shortly after the tall Don had ceased his ques-
tions— and I found no expression in his handsome
face and in the steady gaze of his glowing impas-
sioned eyes to hint to me whether my replies satis-
fied him or not — Captain Dopping came up out of
the cabin.

"Now, Mr. Portlack," said he, in his harsh,
intemperate voice, yet intending nothing but civility,
as I could judge, " get you to your supper, sir ; eat

THE PEOPLE OP LA CASANDRA. 53

hearty, and you can make as free with the hquor as
your common sense thinks prudent."

I was hungry, having tasted no food since the
meal of beef and biscuit whicli liad been set before
me when I was first brought on board ; nevertheless
I entered the cabin and took my place with some
diffidence. I felt a sort of embarrassment in eating
alone and helping myself — perhaps because of the
shore-going appearance of the interior ; it was like
making free in a gentleman's dining-room, the host
being absent. Tom, the nigger boy, waited upon me.
He gave me a dish of excellent soup, and I fared
sumptuously on spiced beef, some sort of dried fish
that was excellent eating, potatoes, beans, fruit, and
the like. The fruit was fresh enough to make me
understand that the vessel was but recently from
port. There were several kinds of wines in decant-
ers upon the table ; but two glasses of sherry sufficed
me, though two such glasses of sherry I had never
before drank. It might be that I was no judge, but
to my palate the flavor of that amber-colored wine
was exquisite.

The negro boy stood near waiting and watching
me intently in the intervals of his business. Had
the skylight been closed I should have put some
questions to hiui, l)iit tlic regular passage of the

54 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

shadows of the two Spaniards upon the glass of the
skylight as they walked the deck, warned me to be
very wary. The change, not indeed from an open
boat, but from the decks and the cabin of the
Ocean Ranger to this interior, with its pictures,
mirrors, its handsomely equipped and most hos-
pitable table, was great indeed, and as I looked
about me I found it difficult to realize the experi-
ence I was passing through. I could now tell by the
weight of the fork and spoon which I handled that
the plate which glittered upon the white damask
cloth was solid silver. There could be no doubt
whatever that the furniture of a drawing-room or of
a boudoir had gone to the equipment of this cabin.
Nothing seemed to fit, nothing had that air of
oceanic fixity which you look for in sea-going
decorations. But a quality of tawdriness stole into
the general appearance through contrast of the gilt,
the looking glasses, the pictures, the velvet, with
the plain, worn sides of the vessel, the rude cabin
beams, and the gray and even grimy ceiling or
upper deck. I asked the negro boy if he spoke
English.

" Yes, massa," said he, " I speak English, nuffin
else, tank de Lord."

" Were you shipped at Cadiz ? "

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA. 55

« Yes sah."

" I siTppose tliey found you cruising about on
the look-out for a job."

He showed his teeth and smiled broadly and
blandly, in silence upturning his dusky eyes to the
skylight. It was no business of mine to question
him, but I thought it as likely as not that he had
run from some American vessel, for it was hard to
imagine that a lad who was undoubtedly a Yankee
negro, and who I might fully believe was without
a word of Spanish, would be idling in Cadiz.

I was about to go on deck when the boy said to
me, "Do yah know where yaw've to sleep?"

" In the 'tween decks I understood," said I.

" I'll show yah, massa, I'll show yah. Dis is de
road to your bedroom, sah," and, somewhat to my
surprise, he went to a little door at the foremost
end of the cabin, opened it, and conducted me into
a part of the schooner that was almost immediately
under the main-hatch. The main-hatch was a very
wide square, and the cover of it was formed of
three pieces, one portion of which was lifted so
that light and air penetrated ; the sun was still
above the horizon, and I could see plainly. A ham-
mock had been swung in a corner on the starboard
side ; it was to be my bed, and there was no other

50 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

article of furniture ; but then I was a sailor, very
well able to dispense with all conveniences, requiring
nothing but a bucket of fresh brine to supply the
absence of a wash-stand. There was a quantity of
rope, some bolts of canvas, and other matters of that
kind stowed away down here. The space, hoM-ever,
was no more than a good sized cabin, owing to the
after bulkhead coming well forward and the fore-
castle bulkhead standing well aft.

Having taken a brief survey of my quarters,
heaving as I did so a melancholy sigh of regret over
the new sea-chest, the quantity of wearing apparel,
the nautical instruments, books and old home
memorials wliich the Ocean Ranwr had sailed
away with, and which it was as likely as not I
should never hear of again, I re-entered the cabin
and mounted the short flight of companion steps.
Captain Dopping M^as Avalking with the two Span-
iards. I went a little way forward to leeward, and
leaned upon the rail, looking at the sea. The
breeze was soft and pleasant, warm Avith the long
day of sunshine, and the schooner was sliding in
buoyant launchings over tlie round brows of the
wide heave of the swell which in the far dim east
swayed in folds of soft deep violet to the tender
magical coloring of the sliadow of the coming night

THE PEOPLE OF LA CASANDRA. 57

that had paused in the heavens there. Four of the
seamen were sitting in the schooner's liead, watch-
ing with amused hairy countenances the face of the
cook Mariana, who grotesquely gesticulated and
contorted his form in his efforts to address them in
English. On a sudden Captain Dopping crossed
the deck, holding a handsome cigar case filled,

"Don Christoval wants to know if you smoke?"

said he.

I took a cigar and lighted it at the stump which
Captain Dopping was smoking, and perceiving that
Don Christoval observed me, I raised my hat, and
made him a low bow, which he returned with the
majesty of a grandee. The captain resumed his
place at the side of the two Spaniards, and I smoked
my cigar alone, with wonder fast increasing upon
me as I looked at tlie cigar^ and tlien reflected upon
the entertainment I was fresh from, and recollected
how Captain Dopping had pronounced the word
'pay. What did it all mean? What mystery M-as
signified, what proposals presently to come were
indicated by this handsome, this hospitable recep-
tion of a distressed seaman — a mere second mate as
I was or had been, rendered destitute by disaster —
one of a crowd of obscure persons without preten-
sions of any kind or soi-t ? Surely, liad I l»een a

58 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

nobleman, a man in the highest degree important
and influential, this treatment could scarcely have
been more liberal and considerate.

I had nearly smoked out the exceedingly fine
cigar when Captain Dopping, in his rasping voice,
cried out to one of the men — I believe it was to the
man George South — to step aft and take charge of
the deck for a bit. I turned my head, and found
that the two Spaniards had gone below. Captain
Dopping beckoned to me, but the gesture was not
wanting in respect. He was but a Deal longshore
man, though superior to the ordinary run of those
fellows, and was impressed or, at all events, influ-
enced by my holding a master's certificate and, let
me say it without vanity, for it is a thing to concern
me but little after all these years, by my speech,
manners, and appearance.

" You are wanted inthe cabin," said he, and he
led the way below.

CHAPTEK III.

DON CHRISTOVAl/s STORY.

Don Christoval and Don Lazarillo were seated
at the table drinking coffee ; tlie atmosphere was
charged Avith the delicate aroma of the berry, blend-
ed with the perfume of choice Cuba tobacco. The
liourwas somew^here about seven. The sunset made
the little space of heaven that showed through the
skylight resemble a square of gilt. Spite, however,
of there being some half-hour of twilight left, the
two polished and gleaming silver cabin-lamps were
burning.

" Pray sit," said Don Christoval. " I want to
talk to you on an affair of business."

I took a chair. Captain Dopping seated himself
opposite me. Don Lazarillo watched me with a
fiery gaze of excitement and expectation.

" I will tell you plainly and at once, Mr. Port ••
lack," said Don Christoval, fastening his fine, burn-

60 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

ing, liquid eyes npon my face, " what the object of

our expedition is. In a word, it is this : I am

going to England to recover my wife, who has been

feloniously stolen from me."

He paused to observe the effect of his words.

I could only look blankly, for there M^as reallv

nothing to be thought so far, and therefore nothing

to be said.

" You will have suspected that our excursion was

a singular one," said he smiHng, Avith a note of

sweetness threading his voice.

" I confess, sir," said I, " tliat I supposed this

schooner to be on an errand which miiflit be some-

thing a little out of the way."

" Wliat does he say ? " said Don Lazarillo in
Spanish. Don Christoval patiently translated and
then resumed, addressing me now with an air of
melancholy and in tones curiously plaintive. " It is
lit that my story should be told to you, because I
shall desire your willing assistance. That story is
well known to my friend, Captain Dopping, Avho
did not engage the crew until he had made them
acquainted with" the object of this expedition.
Captain Noble was in your Eoyal Navy, but he no
longer serves. My mother, who I may tell you was
an English woman, was distantly related to Captain

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 61

Noble on his mother's side. I met tlie captain and
his daughter Ida in Paris, and,'* said he, with a
graceful flourish of his hand, " I fell in love with
the young lady. Captain ISToble's wife is a woman
of distinction. She is Lady Ida Noble, and her
father is an earl. She did not favor my addresses,
nay," said he, with his face darkening — and I ob-
served that the countenance of Don Lazarillo, who
was eying him steadfastly, darkened too in mani-
fest sympathy 's\ath his friend's mood — " she was
rude ; she was repellent ; she was insulting. She
had high desires for her child, higher," he cried,
smiting his breast, and rearing his form, and look-
ing at his friend, " than Don Christoval del Padron."
He gesticulated again. " Enough ! — the lady, pas-
sionately adoring me, consented to elope. I had
followed them to Madrid, and from Madrid my
charming girl and I fled to London, where we were
secretly married. The father tracked us. We
were man and wife ere he discovered us. But, two
days before we had arranged to leave England for
Cuba, where I have an estate, I returned to the
hotel where I had left my wife, and found her gone.
I made inquiries, and gathered from the description
given to me by the people of the hotel that Captain
Noble and his son had called, had had an interview

62 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

with my wife, and that she had driven away with
them in the carriage in which they had arrived. I
easily guessed," he continued, speaking plaintively,
without the least temper, with an expression of
melancholy that wonderfully heightened the beauty
of his face, " that she had been made the victim of
some cruel stratagem. I knew she would write to
me when the chance was permitted her, and week
after week I lingered at the hotel, believing she
would address me there or return to me there.

" A month passed, and then I received a letter.
She informed me that her father and brother had
called and implored her to accompany them to her
mother, who lay in a dying state at a hotel in Bond
Street. She loved her mother, and her tender
heart was half broken by this afflicting intelligence.
ISTaturally, she made haste to accompany her father
and brother ; but it was a base lie, Mr. Portlack,
an inhuman stratagem ! They conveyed her, not to
her mother, but, valgamedios ! to Captain Noble's
estate in Cumberland. There she has remained;
there she still is ; but her deliverance is at hand, and
she awaits me."

" A regular mean and cruel business, don't you
think, Mr. Portlack ? " cried Captain Dopping,
drairsina: at his scarlet whiskers.

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 63

" Does 'ee understand ? " exclaimed Don La-
zarillo.

" Perfectly," I answered. " It would be strange
if I could not understand your pure English, sir,"
addressing Don Christoval.

" What we want to know is " began Captain

Dopping.

" Patience," interrupted Don Christoval, elevat-
ing his hand. " It is probable," he continued, turn-
ing to me, " that we may have to employ force. I
hope not, but we are prepared," he added, with a
flash in his eyes. " The lady is my wife : you will
allow that I have a right to her ? "

" Undoubtedly," said I.

" The marriage Avas in all senses lawful. I can
produce the necessary documentary evidence. I can
produce my dear one's letter in which she com-
municates to me the perfidious conduct of her
father. You Mall own that I have a greater right
to my -wiie than her father has to his daughter."

" You will own that ? " rasped out Captain Dop-
ping. " The law sets the husband first. He's afore
all hands."

" That is so ; that need not be reasoned," said I.

" Will you," said Don Christoval, " agree to as-
sist me in obtaining possession of my wife ? "

64 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Don Lazarillo ap^Deared to understand this ques-
tion. He eyed me sternly and with inexpressible
eagerness.

" Sir," said I, '' you have saved my life and you
have been very good to me. I should msh to be of
service to you, though for no other reason than to
prove my gratitude. But, sir, it would enable me
to answer you, to learn the steps that are to be
taken to recover the lady."

" That is easily done," exclaimed Don Christo-
val, with a sweep of his hand that made a single
diamond upon his finger stream in an arc of white
fire under the lamps. " Captain Noble's house is
called Trafalgar Lodge. It is a house that stands
amid grounds. It is situated on the coast of Cum-
berland, to the south of St. Bees Head. A walk to
it from the shore occupies less than half an hour, so
close is it to the sea. The cliffs are high, but there
is a little bay that has a margin of sand which even
at high water gives plenty of foothold for landing
from a boat. Into this bay between the chffs comes
sloping a — I forget the name in English."

" A gap, Don Christoval ? '' said Captain Dop-
ping.

" That is it — that is it. You walk up this gap
into the country and then the house is not far off.

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 65

There is a little town about four miles distant

inland — it is what you would call the nearest post-

towii to Trafalgar Lodge, It is a silent range of

cliff — there are no guards of the coast. I have

inquired, and there are no guards of the coast

along that cliff. Well, when we arrive we keep

what Captain Dopping calls a wide offing until the

darkness of the night comes. We shall be guided

by the weather : if it is fine we act, if it is stormy

we keep at sea and M'ait. But suppose it fine.

Good ! We launch the boat. Myself, my friend

here, Don Lazarillo de Tonnes, Captain Dopping,

and five seamen enter her and we land The rest

is our affair. There must not be miscarriage ; this

voyage is costly." He glanced as he spoke at Don

Lazarillo. " And we must go ashore in such force

as to assure myself of getting possession of my

wife, let Captain Noble and his son and his men

servants and any gentlemen guests who may be

sleeping in his house — let them, I say, oppose us

as they will. But " — he held up his forefinger

with a smile that made his teeth glance like light

under his heavy black mustache — " what meantime

is to become of this schooner ? Do you see ? The

men we have we must take ashore, saving Mariana

and Tom."
5

66 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" The long and short of it is, Mr. Portlack,"
here broke in Captain Dopping, with a note of
impatience hardening yet his harsh utterance,
" there wasn't time to ship more hands in Cadiz.
Don Christoval had received news that if he wanted
to get possession of his lady he must bear a hand,
for she stands to be carried abroad by her father,
and that 'ud signify a constant shifting of places.
We wanted more men, and Don Christoval wonld
have no sailors but Englishmen. I scraped together
the best I could collect in a hurry, but our company
was too few by one or two for this here job.
There's a house to be surrounded, d'ye see ; there's
a chance of one or more of us being hurt in the
melhee that's likely as not to happen, and then
again a man must be left in charge of the boat."

Don Christoval listened with patience, watching
me ; Don Lazarillo, in a fiery whisper, asked his
friend to translate. This was done, and a short
pause ensued.

" What you wish me to do," said I, " is to take
charge of the schooner while you and the crew are
ashore ? "

" That is it," cried Don Christoval.

"With me you leave Mariana and the negro
boy ? "

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 67

" So."

" A slender ship's company if it should come on
to blow on a sudden," said I, smiling.

" "We shall leave the vessel snug," said Captain
Dopping, " and we don't reckon upon being more
than three hours gone. Besides, we shall be guided
by the looks of the weather. It's still summer
time, ain't it ? "

" You see, Mr. Portlack," said Don Christoval,
leaning back in his chair and infusing a peculiar
note of sweetness into his voice, " you are a naviga-
tor and my friend Captain Dopping is a navigator.
It would be rash for both navigators to go ashore.
Suppose an accident should befall Captain Dopping
— how should we reach Cuba : nay, how should we
reach a near safe port? There is no navigation
among us saving what you and he have."

" I understand, sir. I also gather that when you
have regained the lady you proceed forthwith to
the island of Cuba ? "

" To my estate there," he answered.

"You'll be able to see your way through this
job ? " exclaimed Captain Dopping. " The law's at
the back of us. A man has a right to his own.
There's no lawyer agoing to gainsay that, you know.
If you steal my watch and refuse to hand it over,

68 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

there's no law to hinder me from coaxing you into
my view of the business with a loaded, pistol."

" Explain, in the name of the Virgin," hissed
Don Lazarillo, in Spanish, for these words I could
understand, and such was his excitement and impa-
tience that the rings upon his trembling hands
danced in flashes like rippKng water under a light.

Don Christoval interpreted, on which the other
bestowed several approving nods upon Captain
Dopping

" But I have not yet spoken," said Don Chris-
toval, " of any reward for your services. I here offer
you fifty guineas, which shall be paid to you on our
arrival in Cuba."

" Do you assent, Seiior, do you assent ? " whipped
out Don Lazarillo, who now and again would catch
the meaning of what was said.

The offer was a tempting one. It was made to
a man rendered bankrupt by disaster. The money
would go far to supply my loss ; then again, my im-
mediate business when I reached a port, no matter
where it might be situated, must be to find a berth,
and here was one prepared for me, easily and com-
fortably to be filled by me. Moreover, I was but a
young man, and there were such elements of wild and
startling romance in this Spaniard's proposal as

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 69

could not fail to eloquently appeal to my love of ad-
venture and to my delight in everything new and
stirring. It was not for me to too curiously inquire
into the sincerity of Don Christoval's story. Cap-
tain Popping believed it ; the five seamen believed
it ; and what was there for me to ground suspicion
upon ?

I paused but a minute and then said, " I accept,

• ''5

sir.

" Good ! " cried Don Christoval, with enthusiasm.

He went to a locker, and took from it a small,
richly-inlaid box or desk, which he placed upon the
table; then on a sheet of gilt-edged paper, in the
corner of which was stamped or embossed in colors
a nosegay of flowers, with a legend in Latin upon a
scroll beneath it, he wrote as follows :

" La Casanch^a, at Sea,

" August 9, 1838.

"/, Don Christoval del Padron, hereby under-
take to pay to Mr. James Portlach, acting as first
mate of this schooner .^ the sutn of fifty -tioo pounds
ten shillings sterling on the vessel's arrival at Cicha.^^

He affixed his signature, and the document was
further signed by Don Lazarillo and Captain Dop-
ping as witnesses.

70 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" This is the form of ray agreement with Cap-
tain Dopping and with the sailors," said Don Chris-
toval, handing me the paper. " I trust it satisiies
you ; " and he gave me one of his noble grandee
bows.

" Oh, yes, sir, and I am obliged to you for it. I
suppose the crew will be discharged on the vessel's
arrival at Cuba ? "

" Ay ! " exclaimed Captain Dopping.

" I have but one more question to ask. Is your
Cuban port fixed upon ? "

" Matanzas will not be far off," replied Don
Christoval.

Matanzas I knew to be near Havana ; and at
Havana, whose harbor in those days was populous
with ships, I felt I should have no difficulty in ob-
taining a berth and so making my way home.

I rose, bowed, and went on deck.

The sun was gone ; the night had fallen ; it was
hard upon eight o'clock. The wind had slightly
freshened, and the schooner was slipping nimbly
but quietly over the dark surface of the waters.
There was a slip of young moon in the south-west,
by which sign I might know that, if we made good
progress, there would be moonlight for the wild
midnight adventure we were embarked on. There

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. ^1

was a growling murmur of sailors' voices forward
in the gloom ; aft, sliding up and down against the
brilliant dust of stars over the stern, was the lonely-
shadow of the helmsman gripping the tiller ; the
seaman who had been commissioned to keep a look-
out trudged in the gangway. My watch on deck
would come round at eight o'clock, that is to say, in
a few minutes. I leaned against the rail to think,
but my reverie was almost immediately broken in
upon by Captain Dopping. He approached me
close, and peered to make sure of me, and said :

" Well, now you are one of us, what think ye of
the job?"

" I have not yet had time to think," said I.

" It is good pay," said he, " and no risk to you
either. You're on the right side of the door any-
way. There's bound to be a scrimmage. The house
is an old, strong building, there are gates to pass, and
we must look to be fired upon."

" That you must expect," said I. " But you are
numerous enough — seven powerful men, not count-
ing the eighth, whom you leave to tend the boat.
You will go ashore armed, of course ? "

" Of course."

" You do not doubt that it is a genuine busi-
ness ? " said I.

72 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

"No, no," he answered in his file-like tones;
" it's genuine enough. What d'ye suspect ? "

" Why, do you see, an errand of this sort, Cap-
tain Dopping," said I, hushing my voice, " might
signify anything else than the recovery of a Spanish
gentleman's wife."

" So it might," he answered ; " but in our case it
don't happen to. You'll be satisfied when you see
the lady brought aboard."

" Who is Don Lazarillo ? " said I.

" A bosom-friend of Don Christoval's. I look
to him more than to the other for my money.
Plenty he has ; ye may guess that by his hands."

" But my agreement is with Don Christo-
val."

" He'll pay ye — he'll pay ye."

" How did you meet him ? "

" I heard that he was making inquiries for a
master to take charge of this schooner. I was pilot-
ing a Spaniard to the Thames when she was run
into, and they sent for me to Cadiz ; and I had
finished my business, and was thinking of getting
home again, when this job fell in my way."

Pulling out his watch, he stepped so as to bring
the dial plate into the sheen round about the sky-
light, then calling out that it was eight bells, and

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. Y3

that the course of the vessel was the course to be
steered, he vanished.

The Spaniards arrived on deck to smoke, and
they walked up and down, constantly talking very
earnestly in Spanish. But they never offered to ac-
cost me until they went below, at about half-past
nine, when they both wished me good night, after
Don Christoval had addressed a few words to me
about the weather and the time we were likely to
occupy in our run to the Cumberland coast. But
though they went below, they did not go to bed.
The negro boy placed fruit, wine, and biscuit upon
the table, and the two Dons went to cards, each of
them smoking a long cigar. There was something
dream-like to me in the sight of them, along with
the fancies begotten by the strange situation I now
found myself in. It was like taking a peep into a
camera obscura to glance through the skylight at
the picture which it framed. Don Christoval
looked a noble, handsome creature Indeed, in the
irradiation of the soft oil flames of the sparkling
silver lamps. His smiles played like a light upon
his face, so white were his teeth, so luminous the
glow of his dark eyes at every festal sally of his
own or his friend. "Was his tale to be doubted ?
Surely he was a sort of man to inspire a most ro-

74 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

mantic passion in a woman ; and, given that pas-
sion, all that he had related was perfectly credible
and consistent.

Likely as not, Don Lazarillo was finding the
money for this adventure. Captain Dopping had
said so, and, indeed, one had only to think of the
schooner's equipment, and to peer down into that
gleaming interior, to guess that the cost of this
amazing quest must heavily tax even a very long
purse. Don Christoval had talked of his estate in
Cuba ; he might be a poor man, nevertheless ; his
poverty, indeed, might have proved one of the ob-
jections which Captain ISToble and his wife had
found unconquerable, though their daughter had
thought otherwise. It was quite conceivable then
that Don Lazarillo, being an intimate friend of
Don Christoval, should be helping him by his
purse, his sympathy, and his association.

But speculations of this sort were not very
profitable. I had myself to consider, and it recon-
ciled me, I must own, to the adventure to reflect
that the part I was expected to play in it was a pas-
sive one. The law of England in those times was
not what it now is. Men were hanged for offenses
which are now visited by short periods of impris-
onment. If I was being betrayed into a felonious

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 75

confederacy, I might hope to be safe in the plea of
ignorance, and in the excuse of having taken no act-
ive share in what might happen. Another consid-
eration : suppose I had decHned Don Christoval's
proposal, how should I have been served ? I could
not imagine they would speak a passing ship to
transfer me to her. They were in a hurry, and
not likely, therefore, to delay the run to the Cum-
berland coast by entering a port to set me ashore.
So I must have remained on board in any case, and
being on board, assuming the act they were intent
on an illegal one, I should have been as much or as
little incriminated as I now might be by agreeing to
serve as mate in the vessel.

For eight days, dating from the morning of my
rescue, nothing of sufficient interest happened to
demand that this story should stand still while I tell
it. We had extraordinarily fine weather; never
once did the breeze head us so as to divert the
schooner by as much as half a point from her
course. Twice it blew fresh enough to single reef
our canvas for us, but the breeze was a fair wind ;
it filled the sky with flying shapes of white vapor,
but it left the sun shining brilliantly in the clear
blue hollows between, and on these occasions it was
that La Casandra showed her sailing qualities ; for

^(^ THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

during thirteen hours the log regularly returned her
speed as at something over twelve and a half knots
in the hour. She heaped the foam to her stem
head, and flashed it in dazzling clouds from her
bows, and the race of it spread away astern like the
boiling yeast from the beat of the wheels of a pad-
dle-steamer, with a sparkling hill of sea steadfast on
either quarter, and over those fixed curves of brine
the froth swept like lace endlessly unrolling,

I punctually took sights every day with Captain
Dopping, and every day, therefore, knew the exact
position of the schooner at noon. The point of
coast we were making for lay a few miles to the
south of St. Bees Head. I reckoned that we should
be off it by about the 18th. As the days passed, in-
deed I may say as the hours passed, the Spaniards
grew visibly more anxious. Their laughter was in-
frequent, their conversation earnest and often agi-
tated, as I might reasonably suppose by the tones of
their voices and by their demeanor ; they came and
went restlessly, one or the other of them often ap-
pearing on deck in the night watches, and they
never sat long at table.

But their behavior was perfectly consistent, en
tirely natural, such as was to have been expected in
men who had embarked on a wild romantic advent-

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 77

ure, heavily laden with possibilities of tragedy.
They had very little to say to me, nor were their
conversations with Captain Dopping as frequent as
before. They kept much together, walking arm in
arm, Don Christoval grave to austerity, Don Laza-
rillo energetic in gesticulation, often pausing to
withdraw his arm to smite his hands with vicious
emphasis of what he might be saying, and all their
talk, as I might imagine, was wholly about the prob-
able issue of this attempt to obtain possession of
Senora del Padron,

I had many opportunities of speaking to the
seamen. I warily questioned them, and one or two
appeared convinced that the object of this expedi-
tion was as had been represented to them, while the
others owned that though they did not doubt Don
Christoval's story, it might not be exactly as he had
put it, either.

" But what does it signify ? " a man named
Scott said to me in one middle- watch while I con-
versed with him as he stood at the helm. " If
when we gets ashore and we find out that the job's
different from what we've been made to believe it,
why, sir, here stands one," said he, thumping his
breast, " who'll find it easy enough to say ' No ' if
he means ' No.' There's no blazing furriner in all

78 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Europe, let alone a Spaniard, as is good enough for
an Englishman to get into a mess for. This here
Don says he wants his wife, and I suppose his
money's as good as any other man's. Well, we're
willing for to help him to get his wife, and as his
tarms are handsome we're quite agreeable to a l)it
of a shindy when it comes to our marching up to
the house and asking that the gent's lawful wife
should be restored to him. But if it ain't that,"
said he, squirting a mouthful of tobacco juice over
the stern, " if it's to be something that we haven't
agreed for, some job as might end in a prison hulk
and a free passage to Australia, here stands one,"
he repeated, striking himself afresh, " as '11 find it
easy to say ' No,' if so be as ' ISTo ' is the meaning
that's in his mind."

This, as I collected from the short chats I held
with others of the men, fairly represented the senti-
ments of the schooner's forecastle on the subject of
our expedition.

We had hauled on a course a trifle more west-
erly than was necessary to secure ourselves a wide
offing, and then, somewhere about one o'clock on
the afternoon of the 18th, we shifted our helm and
headed the yacht east-north-east. All hands were
on deck on the look-out for the land, the pale blue

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORy. 79

loom of which might now at any moment be
visible on the sea-line. The wind was about south,
the day clear, hot and tranquil ; there was a terrace
of swollen white vapor down in the west, with a
look of thunder in the knitted texture of the brows
of the stuff, but the mercury in the barometer stood
high, and I could find nothing to disquiet me in tlie
appearance of the English heavens, tessellated here
and there with spaces of high-poised, delicate cloud
that gleamed with divers hues like the pearly inside
of a mussel-shell.

Lunch had been served on deck to the two
Spaniards. I noticed a change in Don Christoval ;
his face had hardened, there was an air of sneering
temper in his rare smile that reduced it to little
more than a mirthless grin, and often a vindictive
look in his eyes as he would stand staring ahead
at the sea, swaying his noble figure to the heave of
the deck. His manner, indeed, suggested itself as
that of one who seeks for courage in temper, for
resolution in the evocation of hot thoughts. Don
Lazarillo was pale as though oppressed with nausea.
He constantly raised his hat to press a large silk
pocket-handkerchief to his brow. When I glanced
at him I'd wonder whether, when the hour came, he
would be among those who entered the boat.

80 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

A small brig, a collier, with dingy ill-fitting
canvas, her yards braced sharp up, passed under
our stern near enough to hail us, but we took no
notice of the old fellow who stood flourishing his
hand upon the rail ; whereupon to mark his disgust
he flung his tall, weather-worn hat down on to the
deck, and shook his fist at us with a shout whose
meaning did not catch my ear, though a laugh arose
among the men forward. The cook Mariana
showed himself very agitated. He was constantly
in and out of his galley, running into the schooner's
head to stare, then darting back afresh to his pots
and pans, one moment popping his hideous face out
from the door to starboard, then thrusting it
through the door to port, making one think of
those little toy monsters which spring out of a box
when you free the lid.

At four o'clock the land was in sight. The
giant St. Bees Head dimly shaded the sea-line in
the north-east, and thence the shore stretched in a
blue film to the south, djnng out in the azure atmos-
phere. Don Christoval leaned over the rail view-
ing the land with a face darkened by an immovable
frown, the scowling air of which gave a malevolent
expression to his eyes. He stood rooted — motion-
less— his hand with a paper cigar between his fin-

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 81

gers, half raised to his mouth, as though the whole
form of him had been withered by a blast of light-
ning.

" How close do you mean to sail, Capitan ? "
cried Don Lazarillo, sputtering out his words bro-
kenly, vnth such an accent as could not possibly
be imitated in print. " We shall be seen ! " he ex-
claimed, with his face working with agitation.

"No fear of our being seen at this distance,
Don Lazarillo," answered Captain Dopping. " A
four mile offing is all we want till nightfall, and
that there land is three times that distance off."

Don Lazarillo asked Don Christoval to explain,
but the tall Spaniard continued to stand as though
in a trance.

An hour passed, all remained quiet aboard the
schooner. The light wind fanned the clipper keel
of the craft forward, and by the expiration of the
hour the land was hard, firm, and defined, but with
no feature of spur, chasm, or ravine visible as yet
to the naked eye. Sail was shortened to the extent
of the topsail being furled, a jib hauled down, and
the gaff-topsail taken in.

" Best see, while there's plenty of time and day-
light," said Captain Dopping to me, " that the
boat's all ready for launching," and then addressing

82 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Don Christoval, lie exclaimed, " Shall we get the
arms-chest up, sir, and the weapons served out ?
It may come on a dark night," he added, sending a
look at the terrace of cloud in the west, "and it
won't do to mess about with lanterns."

" Do whatever you think proper," whipped out
Don Christoval in accents fierce with excitement,
though by his stern, hard, and frowning face it
would have been impossible to guess his agita-
tion.

I superintended the clearing away of the boat,
and saw that everything was in readiness for launch-
ing her. This was to be done smack fashion — that
is to say, by running her through the gangway over
the side. Meanwhile a couple of seamen brought
up a large square black box. Captain Doppiug
opened it, and disclosed a number of cutlasses and
heavy pistols of the old-fashioned type. He called
to the seamen and handed them each a pistol and a
cutlass. I watched their faces as they received
them. They all of them handled the weapons as
objects strange to their grasp, with awkward grins
running over their countenances as they poised the
firearms in their brawny fists or drew the cutlasses
to examine their blades.

" I hope," said the man Andrew Trapp, " that

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 83

it ain't going to come to our using tliese here
tools ? "

" The lady's to be got possession of," said Cap-
tain Popping, " without spilling blood if it can be
managed ; but to be got, anyhow."

" That's right enough," said the sailor named
South, " but all the same," said he, leveling the pis-
tol he held, " if so be as 1 am to fire this here con-
sarn, I choose that it shouldn't be at a fellow coun
try man."

" Mind dat pistole," cried Don Lazarillo, recoil-
ing a step.

" I take it," said the seaman named William
Scott, gazing earnestly at the cutlass in his hand,
" that these weapons are meant more to what they
calls overawe the people in the house we're to sur-
round than to be used agin 'em."

" We may have to exert force," said Don Cliris-
toval, who stood near listening ; " if our lives are
threatened we must be in a position to protect
ourselves. Is not this as you would wish,
men ? "

There was a general murmur of assent.

" I claim my right — no more ! " the tall Span-
iard cried, with an impassioned gesture of his arm ;
" you will help me to assert my right ? I trust no

84 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

blood may be shed — if blood is shed it will not be
our fault."

" That puts it correctly, I thinlc, lads ? " ex-
claimed Captain Dopping^ in his harshest voice and
with his most thrusting manner.

The sailors holding their weapons went for-
ward. "Were they to be trusted at a pinch, I won-
dered ? Assuredly they were not to be trusted in
any sense if the business they were about to enter
upon should prove in the smallest degree different
from the object of the expedition as represented by
Don Christoval.

"We continued to stand in for the land under
small canvas, which, however, there was no further
occasion to reduce, for as the sun sank the wind
fined down, and at seven o'clock the breeze had
scarce weight enough to hold our sails steady. The
sun was astern of us, and his light streamed full
upon the coast, which glowed red as copper in that
atmosphere upon the dark blue of the water brim-
ming to its base and against the violet of the east-
ern sky. When the little collier brig which had
spoken us sank her topmost cloths past the rim of
the ocean, the sea line ran flawless from St. Bees
Head right away round to the point where the land
melted out. It was hard to credit that we were in

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 85

home waters, so deserted was that wide surface.
The schooner might, indeed, have been softly rip-
phng through the heart of some Pacific sohtude.

With the aid of a powerful telescope, lianded
to me by Don Christoval, I could distinctly make
out the bay where the boat was to go ashore, and
the dark scar of gap or ra^ane vanishing in the land
beyond. I had never before been off this coast,
and ran the glass along the line of it, but I could
see no houses, no habitation of any sort ; it was
sheer rugged cliff, whose character of forbidding
desolation was not to be softened by the rich and
beautiful light that at this hour clothed it. I asked
Captain Dopping if he was acquainted with this
coast, and he answered that many years before he
had made a trip to Whitehaven, which lay round
the corner to the north of St. Bees Head. That
was all he knew of the Cumberland shore. Occa-
sionally Don Lazarillo would descend into the cabin,
and twice on glancing through the skylight I
detected him in the act of pouring out with a
trembling hand a full bumper of sherry, which he
seemed to swallow furtively, but looking round in-
stead of up, possibly forgetting the deck window
through which I peeped. These draughts began to
tell upon him ; his face grew flushed, his fiery eyes

86 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

moist, and his gait clianged into a defiant strut
when he moved restlessly about his friend, talking
with extraordinary vehemence and a frequent snap
of his fingers. Don Christoval, on the other hand,
exhibited a new phase of mood. There was less of
gloom in his face, more of animation. He smoked
his cigar collectedly, with now and again a smile,
and sometimes a laugh at what his flushed-faced,
restless, gesticulating companion said. I took it
that the English blood in his veins kept his nerves
steady without obliging him to imitate Don Laza-
rillo's quest after courage in the contents of a de-
canter of wine.

I remember the sunset that night as one of sul-
len and thunderous magnificence. The luminary,
like a huge red rayless target, sank into the coast of
cloud over the stern, setting fire to the round and
tufted shoulders of the long, compacted mass, but
darkening the base of it into an ugly livid hue.
Long beams of light, like the spokes of some titanic
wheel of flame, projected in burning lines till their
red and storm-colored extremities were over our
mastheads ; and as they slowly fainted, the coast
ahead of us darkened, the blue of the sky beyond it
deepened into liquid dusk with a single rose-colored
star faintly trembling in the heavens almost directly

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 87

above the bay that was onr destination, as though
it were some freshly kindled beacon to advise us
how to head through the aj)proacliing gloom.

We continued slowly to stand i]i. The stem of
the schooner scarcely broke the quiet water, and I
reckoned that unless more wind came we should
not have arrived at a point where we were to come
to a stand much before midnight. The moon rose
somewhere about half -past eight. Slie soared in a
swollen mass of crimson out of the inky dye of the
land, but swiftly changed into clear silver. Astern
of us there was a constant play of red lightning,
with an occasional moan of thunder slij^ping over
the dark soft folds of the small swell. The two
Spaniards, Captain Dopping, and myself stood near
the helm.

" The moon," said Don Christoval, " shines full
upon our white canvas, and reveals us."

" But first of all," said Captain Dopping, " who's
keeping a look-out yonder ? And next, supposing
there to be eyes on the watch, who's to guess our
business ? Wouldn't any man who may already
have twigged us through a glass reckon us a gentle-
man's pleasure-yacht from the Isle of Man, say,
sauntering inward in view of this quiet night with
a chance of a calm atop of it? But if you like,

88 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Don Christoval — though it's not what I should rec-
ommend— we'll stand in a mile or two farther, then
douse evei-y stitch, and ride to a short scope. The
soundings '11 be about twenty fathom."

" That will look suspicious," said Don Christo-
val. " I do not like the idea. I do not advocate
anchoring. See the time that will be lost in heav-
ing up the anchor."

" What ees it dat Capitan Dopping say 'i " in-
quired Don Lazarillo.

His friend explained ; on which Don Lazarillo
cried out shrilly, " No, no, no," and addressed Don
Christoval in Spanish with incredible vehemence of
delivery and gesticulation, his friend meanwhile ut-
tering the single word " Si ! " in a soothing note
over and over again.

" But if this breeze takes off. Captain Dop-
ping," said I, when I could get an opportunity to
speak, " you'll either have to bring up or take your
chance of the schooner drifting far enough to make
the pull from the shore to her a long one."

Captain Dopping stared round the sea, whist-
ling.

" How far off is the land ? " said Don Chris-
toval.

" Call it six mile," answered the captain.

DON CHRISTOVAL'S STORY. 89

" It would be too far to row," said Don Chris-
toval. " We must creep farther in."

" At what hour, sir," I asked, " do you wish to
land?"

" It must be past midnight," answered the Span-
iard, " when the house is hushed, and when, should
firearms be used, there will be no one awake in the
country around to hear the reports."

" And how long is the job going to take us, I
wonder ? " said Captain Dopping, cutting off a piece
of black tobacco with a big clasp knife, whose blade
glittered in the moonlight, and burying the morsel
in his cheek.

" An hour — easily in an hour," answered Don
Christoval, speaking rapidly and breathing swiftly.
" Mark now how I piece out the time : three quar-
ters of an hour to row ashore, half an hour to
march to the house, that makes an hour and a quar-
ter ; an hour in executing our errand, that makes
two hours and a quarter ; and then another hour
and a quarter to regain the schooner, that makes
three hours and a half in all. Call the time four
o'clock when we sail away, by five we shall be out
of sight of land."

CHAPTER IV.

A MIDNIGHT THEFT.

It fell a stark calm at ten o'clock, and then I
believed that there could be nothing for it but to
bring up— that is, to let go the anchor ; but half an
hour later the moonhght upon the water — for by
this time the moon had floated southward — was
tarnished bj a little air of wind from the south and
west; it breathed, wet with dew, like a sigh into
the schooner's canvas, then softly freshened into a
small summer night-wind. The mass of clouds in
the west had vanished ; all was clear heaven from
the sea line there to the looming shadow of the land
over our bow; the moon rode high, small and
piercingly clear ; the canvas shone like ice in the
light; stars of diamond-like brilliance sparkled in
the moisture along the rail ; and every man's shadow
lay at his feet upon the pearl-colored planks, as
though drawn in Indian ink there. The hush of
expectation lay upon the little vessel as she crept

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 91

along with a noise of rippling water refreshingly
rising from alongside. Captain Dopping held his
watch to the moon.

" Wants but twenty minutes to midnight," said
he ; " we're close enough in. Down helm," and he
began to sing out orders in a voice Mdiose harshness
sounded startlingly upon the ear amid the exquisite
serenity of that moonlit night.

The men ran about, still further reducing sail.
So clear was the night, it was possible even at a dis-
tance to read the expressions upon their faces.
There was no Preventive Force or Coastguard Serv-
ice then as now. The English coast was indeed
watched at certain parts of it wdiere smuggling was
notoriously carried on, and the people who kept a
look-out were styled blockaders ; but the northern
reaches, more particularly where the coast was rug-
ged and high, and where the facility for " running "
goods, as it was called, was small, were unsentineled.
The smuggler needed the accommodating creek, the
comfortably shoaling foreshore, secret hiding places,
and, above all, a handy local machinery for the
prompt distribution of his commodities. All this
was to be found in the English Channel, more par-
ticularly in that stretch of it which lies between the
North and South Forelands; but it was not to be

92 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

met with up here, on this lonely iron-bound Cum-
berland coast. In our time, even in these times,
Avhen smuggling is a decaying, an almost extinct
business, the pallid apparition of such a schooner as
La Casandra hovering doubtfully at midnight off
any point of the English shore would infallibly
in a very short time win the regard and invite the
visit of a boat full of brawny coastguards, armed, as
our men were about to arm themselves, with pistols
and with cutlasses. '

" Get the boat launched, my lads," called out
Captain Dopping.

The gangway was unshipped, the muscular fists
of the seamen gripped her gunwales, and she was
run with a note of thunder overboard, stern fore-
most, smiting the water a blow that lashed it white,
then lying quietly in the shadow of the schooner.
The two Spaniards descended into the cabin, Don
Lazarillo talking noisily as he trod upon his compan-
ion's heels. I stood looking on while Captain Dop-
ping and the seamen girded the cutlasses to their
hips and thrust pistols into their pockets or breasts.

" You will keep a bright look-out for us, Mr.
Portlack," said the captain. " Hold the schooner as
stationary as possible. There's nothing going to
hurt her to-night," said he, with a look round, " and

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 93

there'll be no tide to speak of for another two hours.
You will then wear and keep her with her head to
the nor'ard."

" Ay, ay, sir. But suppose, while you're ashore,
a boat should come off and speak us ? "

" Not likel}^, not likely," he rasped out.

" But suppose it. Captain Dopping. I accept no
responsibility. "What am I to say, and what am I to
do?"

" Don't Don Christoval and his friend mean to
come ? " he answered, walking to the skyhght and
looking down.

Either he could not invent any instructions, or
he considered a visit from a shore boat as a thing too
improbable to merit consideration.

The two Spaniards came on deck. I had never
supposed that Don Lazarillo would have had cour-
age to enter the boat until I obser\ed that he had
armed himself with a long saber, the extremity of
whose steel scabbard was visible at the skirts of the
Spanish cloak he had drawn over his shoulders.
Don Christoval was similarly swathed, but how
armed I am unable to say, as no weapon was to be
seen upon him.

" All's ready for the start, gentlemen," exclaimed
Captain Dopping.

9^ THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" Riglit ! " exclaimed Don Christoval in a firm,
deep voice, " let the men enter the boat."

The sailors dropped into her one by one, and sat
silent and grim and dark in the gloom of the schoon-
er's side, waiting.

" Where is Mariana ? " cried Don Christoval.

The ugly cook's voice answered from somewhere
forward, and he approached. Don Christoval ad-
dressed him in Spanish impressively, and as it
seemed to my ear menacingly, emphasizing his
words with frequent gestures. Mariana responded
humbly with many shakes of the head, as though in
deprecation of what had been said to him. Don
Christoval then turned to me and extended his hand.

" Mr. Portlack, I rely upon your vigilance and
seamanship. "We hope not to be long absent."

He relinquished my hand, I raised my cap, and
without another word, he, Don Lazarillo and Cap-
tain Dopping stepped over the side.

" Shove off," the captain exclaimed, and in a few
moments the boat was gliding shoreward to the
noise of the rhythmic grind of her five long oars
betwixt the thole-pins, with eddies of dim phos-
phorescence under each lifted blade.

I watched her until her small shape, blending
with the shadow thrown by the high land upon the

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 95

water, was lost to siglit, and tlien stepped aft to the
helm, at which stood the negro boy Tom, who had
been ordered to the tiller by me when the steersman
had relinquished it to enter the boat. I mechanically
eyed the illuminated disk of compass card, while
my thoughts accompanied the armed expedition that
was making for the shore. I figured the arrival of
the boat at the margin of white sand that curved
with the bay ; i)i fancy I saw the people get out of
her, leaving one behind to watch, and marching in
a little dark company up the gap, a faint noise of
the clank of side-arms attending them. In imagina-
tion I marked them cautiously approach the house
— but what sort of house was it ? Walls I had
heard it had, and gates, and these must be forced or
scaled. But what of Madame del Padron, the Ida of
Don Christoval's heart, if not of his hearth ? Was
she lying awake yonder, expecting her husband?
Impossible ! for no date could certainly have been
fixed for the arrival of the schooner off the coast.
But of course she would be awaiting him with im-
passioned anxiety at all hours of the night — nights
that were gone, and to-night that was going : and he
would have told her that he meant to regain her
with the aid of an armed crew of seamen. Yet,
though forewarned, should a struggle happen, she

96 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

would listen with terror to the sound of fire- arms, to.
explosions, which might signify the death of her
husband, or the fall of one or more of her own
people, only a little less dear to her than her hus-
band. What was her age ? Was she dark or fair ?
Beautiful I could not but imagine the heroine, or,
rather, the object, of such an adventure as this
must be.

Then from musings of this sort my mind ram-
bled into reflections of the odd and perilous fortune
that had brought me into this business. How had
fared the two sailors whom the murderous rogue of
a Yankee skipper had pilfered from me? Into
what- parallels had the Ocean Kanger penetrated by
this time, and what man of her crew had been se-
lected to fill my place ? I looked at the negro boy,
whose eyes in the moonlight resembled a brace of
new silver coins set in a block of indigo.

" What's your other name ? " said I.

" Tom, sah."

" Ay, but what besides Tom ? "

" Tom ober and ober again, massa, as often as
yah like."

" How old are vou ? "

t/

He grinned widely as he answered, "I^ebber
was told, sah."

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 97

" Are you a Roman Catholic ? " said I, talking
slieerlj for the want of sometliing to do, and im-
agining he miglit have been chosen by Don Christo-
val because of his rehgion.

He shook his head, still broadly grinning, but
meaning that he did not understand.

" Have you any religion ? "

" Yes, sah."

" What is it ? "

" I believe dat when I die I shall be seen no
mo'."

" Where do you go when you die ? "

" I know, sah," he answered, with a low throaty
laugh.

" Where ? " said I.

" Dis child," said he, touching his body, " goes
dar," and he pointed down ; " dat child," he con-
tinued, indicating his shadow that stretched sharply
defined upon the planks, " goes up dar," and he
pointed upward.

" Who taught you that ? " said I.

" Is it true, massa ? "

" Mind your helm," said I, " and I'll talk to you
another time,"

I went to the side and peered. The atmosphere
in the south-west was brimful of moonshine, and the

98 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

sea line mingled with the sky in the delicate haze of
sheen till you could not tell heaven from water.
Nothing broke the stillness but the voice of the
wind-brushed ripples, unless it were the chafe of a
rope on high or the gull-like cry of the sheave of a
block stirred by a sudden strain. The shadowy iig-
ure of Mariana, the cook, restlessly paced the deck
forward. He seemed to be keeping a sharp look-
out, as I was. A flock of w^ild fowl passed high
overhead ; their cries as they swept, invisible, over
our trucks made a strange, solemn, plaintive noise
in the midnight silence that was upon the sea.
Sometimes I believed I could hear the small remote
thunder of surf echoing out of the line of land
which, now that the moon was shining upon it,
stood in a long pale spectral range.

I was tliirsty and stepped below for a tumbler
of seltzer and claret. I took a cigar from a box
which stood upon the table, dimmed the cabin
lamps, and returned on deck. Expectation, the
constant obligation of keeping a penetrating look-
out, made the time heavy. The moon floated into
the western quarter, and slowly the orb lost its brill-
iance and took its rusty hue of setting, though it
was still high above the horizon. Nothing in the
shape of a sail was visible the wide sea round ; I

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 99

was able to sink my sight to the confines of the
water, but never could see the dimmest apparition
of a ship.

Some time before three o'clock I wore the
schooner, and waiting until she regained the point
at which the boat had left her, I brouglit her head
to the wind and held her so with her canvas trem-
bling to the breeze. It was shortly after I had done
this that my eye was taken by a faint redness
ashore. The rim of the cliff turned black against
the dim crimson light. It might have passed as the
first of the lunar dawn — as though another moon
were rising beyond the land to replace the orb that
was sinking in the west. Mariana came out of the
bows and called out to me with his incommunicable
accent :

" Seiior, do you see ? " and he pointed to the
light.

" Yes," said I, " that looks like a fire ashore.
Whether the house has been fired by design or mis-
chance, our people will have to bear a hand ; for
should there be any sort of country-side thereabouts
it'll be swiftly up and wide awake and running and
shouting to that signal."

He grunted, evidently without understanding a
word of what I had said, and went forward again.

100 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

I had just glanced at the cabin clock and ob-
served that it exactly wanted five minntes to four
when my ears were caught by the sound of oars
working in their pins. A moment later we were
hailed in a voice thin with distance. I answered
with a " Halloa ! " at the top of my lungs. Pres-
ently the boat shaped itself out of the gloom that
lay heavy upon the waters to the eastward. The
gathering strength of the grinding noise was war-
rant that the men strained hard at their oars. The
boat came shearing and hissing alongside as though
her stem were of red-hot steel ; the oars were flung
in and a boat-hook arrested the fabric's progress.

I stood at the side in the open space of the
schooner's gangway. My eye was instantly caught
by the figure of a woman supported in the arms of
Don Christoval. One sees a thing quickly, and in
the breathless pause between the arrival of the boat
and what next happened I had time to note that
the woman rested perfectly motionless as though
dead, that her head was uncovered, and that her left
arm lay like a stroke or dash of white paint in the
gloom with a scintillation of gems in the dim gleam
of some gold ornaments upon her wrist. Indeed,
imperfect as my view was of her, I might yet know
that she was in ball attire !

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 101

Three or four seamen came bounding out of the
boat ; the voice of Don Christoval exclaimed :

" Is that you, Mr. Portlack ? "

" It is, sir."

" Captain Dopping," he cried, " lias been shot
dead. We were forced to leave him behind. Tlie
command of the schooner devolves upon you. This
lady is in a heavy swoon, and must be lifted over
the side. Let it be done instantly, pray ; there is
no time to lose.''

1 was greatly startled and shocked to hear of
Captain Dopping having been shot dead and left
behind, but the general agitation of the moment,
the obligation of hurry, the wild impatience of the
Spaniard, that hissed feverishly through his words,
gave me no time to think of anything but what we
had in hand. Don Christoval, muscular and big as
he was, was unable, no doubt through exhaustion,
to rise with the burden he supported. Don Laza-
rillo, addressing him in Spanish, sprang on board
the schooner. I ordered a couple of seamen to as-
sist Don Christoval, and the lady was lifted over the
side and received by Don Lazarillo and Mariana,
who straightway bore her below. I believed her to
be dead. She never stirred, or uttered the least
sound.

102 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" Are all returned, saving tlie captain ? " I called
out.

" All returned, sir," answered tlie gruff voice of
one of the seamen.

" Anybody wounded ? "

" Nobody hurt, saving the captain, who was shot
dead," responded the same voice.

Don Christoval, with a stagger in his gait,
stepped out of the boat on to the deck, calling to
me to give him my hand, lest he should fall back-
ward.

"Be quick, and sail away, Mr. Portlack," said
he, hoarsely. " A wing of the house caught tire, but
through no fault of ours — no ! It was owing to the
carelessness of some terrified servant within. Only
one shot was fired ; it was meant for me, and slew
Captain Dopping, w^ho was at my side. That fire
was a terrible signal — it may still be burning : I
do not know ; all seemed in darkness when we
gained the gap, but they rang a danger bell, a fear-
ful summons that seemed to echo for miles and
miles. Did you hear it here ? " he cried, almost
gasping with the rapidity of his utterance.

" No, sir."

"Mounted messengers will have been flying
from place to place long ago," he continued ; " they

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 103

will send to Whitehaven, where, I heard our sailors
say, there may be lying a Revenue cutter, or some
more formidable ship of the State yet, to pursue us ;
therefore, for om* lives' sake, Mr. Portlack, get the
boat in and start at once."

He paused an instant to clasp his hands with an
air of impassioned, theatrical appeal to me, then
went below walking like a drunken man.

The bows of the boat were hastily hoisted into
the gangway by means of a tackle called a burton.
All hands of us then grasped the fabric, and dragged
her bodily to her place on the deck. I could collect,
by the motions of the men, that they were frightful-
ly fatigued, but they worked with a will, as for their
lives, indeed ; well knowing — better knowing than I
probably — what must be the fate of all hands of us
if we were to be captured red-handed thus, with the
house still on fire ashore for all we could tell —
though I could now see no signs of the glow I had
before observed — and with the dead body of the
captain to fearfully testify to the audacious nature
of this expedition.

Every stitch of sail the schooner carried was,
cloth by cloth, expanded. Within ten minutes of
the boat's return she was in her place on deck, the
little topgallant-sail was being sheeted home, and La

104 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

Casandra, under full breasts of canvas, was sliding
out into the gloom south and west. Clouds had
collected in the west ; and if the moon still hung
over the sea, she could not show her face. Our
course brought the weak damp wind a little forward
of the beam. This was the schooner's best point of
sailing, and she slided through it with a nimbi eness
that I hoped would put her out of sight of land
before daybreak.

Wliile the men, with weary motions, were coil-
ing away the running gear which littered the deck,
Mariana came up out of the cabin with a bottle of
brandy. He told me that Don Christoval wished
the sailors to drink. I said —

" Take it forward and serve it out ; but see that
no man gets more than a dram. If you muddle
their brains, you will be putting us in the way of
beino; han2:ed."

That he partly understood me I knew, by the
energetic assent he howled out in his own tongue.
I carefully swept the sea line, and then took a look
through the cabin skylight. I had intended no
more than a glance, but my gaze was arrested, as
though fascinated by the spectacle it surveyed.
Some one had turned up the lamps, and their flames
burned brightlv. Don Christoval sat at the table.

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 105

supporting his head by resting his jaw npon his
chnched fists. Don Lazarillo occupied a chair close
to him ; a tumbler, half full, was before him ; he
held an unlighted cigar, and his eyes were fixed
upon the object at which his friend was staring.

This was no more nor less than the figure of a
girl of about two-and-twenty, resting at full length
upon a velvet couch. The remains of what might
have been a wreath of flowers were in her hair. A
portion of her hair, that was of a dark red, and that
glowed like gold, as though it had been plentifully
dusted with gilt powder, was detached, and lay in a
long thick tress upon her shoulder. They had un-
clasped a rich opera cloak, and her attire was
revealed. Her ball-dress of white satin, looped here
and there Avith pink roses, was cut low, and exposed
her throat and shoulders ; but there were some
ugly scratches on the flesh near her left shoulder.
She wore very handsome jewelry : diamond ear-
rings, a rope of pearls with a cross of diamonds
that sparkled against the dark yellow of the tresses
which had fallen. Her arms of faultless mold were
bare to the short sleeves ; her hands were gloved ; I
believed I could witness traces of blood upon the
white kid ; and lier wrists were circled with brace-
lets.

106 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

But to describe all this is really to describe
nothing : for how am I to convey to you the dis-
order of apparel that suggested a struggle which
you must have thought deadly in its consequences,
when you looked at her motionless shape, her closed
eyes, her bloodless face, and the lifeless pose of her
arms ?

I stood gazing. Presently Don Christoval,
extending a trembhng hand, poured himself out
half a tumbler of brandy — brandy I might suppose
it was, by observing that he filled up the glass with
water. He drained the tumbler, and suddenly
looked up and saw me. He instantly rose aud came
on deck. He was without his hat. He seated him-
self on the corner of the skylight, where he com-
manded a view of the interior of the cabin, and
called down some words in Spanish to Don Lazarillo,
who nodded violently, but without removing his
eyes from the girl.

" Does the schooner make good way ? " said
Don Christoval.

" Yes," I answered ; " her speed is about five
miles an hour."

" At dawn shall we be out of sight of the
coast ? "

" It will not be long before daybreak," said I,

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 107

" and at dawn the coast may be in siglit of us, but I
do not suppose we shall be in sight of it,"

He stood up to look around the sea.

" It is sad," he exclaimed, " that Captain Dop-
ping should have been shot."

" It is shocking," said I.

" You have sole control of the schooner now,
Captain Portlack, for my captain I make you," said
he. " And the money that I had agreed to pay to
Captain Dopping shall be yours, in addition to the
fifty guineas as arranged."

I gave him a bow and said, " Thank you." My
eyes were fixed upon the motionless girl below ; he
was able to observe the direction of my gaze by the
sheen of the lamplight, that rose like a haze through
the glass and the lifted lid of the skylight.

" Plow cruel ! how cruel ! " said he, in a deep yet
musical voice, that was not the less thrilling because
of a certain indefinable flavor of theatricalism ;
" how cruel, that I should be obliged to claim what
is mine by force, which I find barbarous when I
look there," said he, pointing to the figure of his
wife, " and when I recall Captain Dopping's cry as
he fell lifeless at my side."

" Is your lady dead ? " said I.

" No, no, I think not ; indeed, I am sure not.

108 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

She is sunk in a trance or stupor. If she were bled,
she would revive ; but there is no man on board who
has the skill to bleed her."

" She looks to have been very roughly handled."
" What you see," he cried, " is the work of her
inhuman father and brother. Captain Noble, his
son, and my wife had returned from a ball. We
found the gate open, the carriage at the door : they
had only just alighted, indeed, and the carriage was
in the act of driving away ; but the hall-door was
closed. We knocked, and Captain Noble put his
head out of a window and asked who was there. I
told him that it was I, Don Christoval del Padron ;
that I had arrived to take possession of my wife,
whom he had forcibly divorced from me and was
keeping a prisoner — that is, never leaving her out
of his own sig-ht or the sight of others of his familv.
He disappeared, and then returned to the window.
I did not know he was armed. He shouted insult-
ingly to us to be off. " Give me my wife ! " I cried.
" I desire no struggle, no uproar. Give her to me, to
whom she belongs, and we will withdraw peace-
fully." He fired, and Captain Dopping fell and
died with a groan. On this we stormed the door ;
we put a pistol to the keyhole and blew away the
lock. Strangely enough, the door was not bolted.

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 109

No doubt, in the alarm our sudden appearance had
caused, this had been overlooked, or possibly Cap-
tain Noble supposed that some one had shot the
bolts. We entered ; but what follows others may
be better able to tell than I. All was confusion and
cries. They had hidden my wife. We entered five
rooms before we found her. This search was mine
and Don Lazarillo's. The seamen guarded the door,
and stood cutlass in hand over Captain Noble and
his son. I found my wife locked in a room. When
I turned the key and she beheld me she rushed to
my arms with a cry of delight. I enveloped her in
her opera cloak and conducted her downstairs, but
on Captain Noble and his son beholding us they
dashed themselves against the seamen, rushed upon
us, and then it was that my wife suffered in her
apparel and upon her neck, as you see. She fainted,
she instantly became insensible. In the stupor that
she now lies in we carried her to the boat. As we
left the house I saw the red light of lire in a wing
on the left, but it was not our doing ; they can not
charge that to me."

This extraordinary story he told in such broken-
winded English as I have attempted to convey it in.
While I listened, I had found it difficult to reconcile
his statement that his wife had been imprisoned

110 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

by her father witli the circumstance of her having
accompanied him and her brother to a ball. Then,
again, while I listened, from time to time, looking
at the figure of the girl as he spoke, I wondered, as
I had before wondered again and again, in thinking
over the object of this expedition, why, if the lady,
as he had represented, had been all anxiety to re-
join her husband, should Don Christoval have con-
sidered it necessary to carry an armed force ashore
with him ? That she had not been a prisoner, in the
sense of being confined to a room, or to a suite of
rooms, was made manifest by the ball attire in which
she lay as one dead upon the cabin sofa. Her lib-
erty in a certain degree she must have enjoyed.
Could she not, at some preconcerted signal, have
stolen from the house secretly, and darkly joined
her husband, and secretly and darkly sailed away
with him, saving all this tremendous obligation of
midnight landing and of armed seamen, with its
trasric result of fire and a slain man, not to men-
tion the condition of the vdie, who, if not now
actually dead, might be a corpse before the snn
rose?

There might have been a pause of five or six
seconds while I thus mused, during which I seemed
to feel rather than see that his dark and burning

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. HI

eyes were scrutinizing me bj aid of the cabin light
that touched my face.

" The lady lies startlingly motionless, shockingly
lifeless, Don Christoval," said I.

" But her pulse beats — her pulse beats."

" Shall you persist in sailing to Cuba, sir ? "

" Certainly ; we are now proceeding to Cuba,"
he exclaimed, and he half rose from the corner of
the skylight as though with a mind to step to the
compass.

" Cuba is a long way off," said I.

" What of that ? " he cried, instantly, and with
heat.

" Seeing the condition of that lady," said I, " I
could not be sure but that you would wish to visit
some near port to obtain medical help, and "

" What ? " he demanded, bending his head for-
ward to observe me.

" Why ! " said I, with embarrassment, because I
was about to say something that might sound like
impertinence in the ear of the Spaniard, " madame,
your wife, Don Christoval, will not be expected by
you to make a voyage to the island of Cuba in a
ball-dress."

" I have provided for that," he exclaimed,
haughtily. " I have minded my business, Captain

112 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

Portlack, and if you will mind yours all will be
well." He immediately added in a softened voice,
as tliougli regretting any display of temper, " Yes,
we must proceed to Cuba. If Cuba is erased from
my j)rogramme, my arrangements will be rendered
worthless. Besides, we have to-night done that
which must oblige us, for every man's sake, to put
as many leagues of water between ourselves and
yonder country as this schooner can measure in a
month. The Atlantic Ocean is not too wide for us
after what has happened in the darkness this morn-
mg."

Just then the cook or steward Mariana came
under the skyhght and upturned his mask of a face.
He addressed Don Christoval in Spanish. The
other answered and was about quitting me, but
stopped and said : " Let me see, Captain Portlack, I
believe you sleep under the main hatch ? "

I said yes, that was so.

" Well, we shall not wish to disturb you. Don
Lazarillo surrenders his cabin to my wife, and he
takes that which Captain Dopping occupied. But
any conveniences you may require, pray ask for, and
you shall have them. I will take care that all the
nautical instruments, the chronometer, the charts,
and such furniture are conveyed to you."

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 113

He then went below. It was not proper that I
should linger at the skylight as though I were a spy.
I paced the deck, looking eastward for the first
faint green of the dawn ; yet my walk carried me
so close to the skylight, and the length of deck I
traversed was so short besides, that it was easy to
see what was going on below without pausing or
appearing to look. Still, what I saw was no more
than this : that Don Christoval, his friend, and
Mariana assembled at the side of the unconscious
girl, where they appeared to hold a consultation;
that when I passed the skylight in another turn, I
observed them posturing themselves as though to
lift her ; and that when I once more passed the sky-
light in the third turn, the interior was empty — the
lady had been conveyed to her berth.

Day broke a little later. The land showed dim
against the dawn ; and the distance we had made
good during the hour of darkness had carried us,
as I had foreseen, far out of eye-shot of any point
of the range of cliffs. There was a small vessel
standing to the north, abeam of us, and the sails of
another, hull down, were shining upon the blue
edge of the sea right ahead, as prismatically to the
early piercing radiance of the now risen sun as a
leaning shaft of crystal. I leveled a glass at her
8

114 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

and found that she was piirsning the course we
were steering. There was nothing in sight where
the shadow of the land was ; but even if I had sup-
posed we should be pursued, I was very sure we
should not be caught. There was nothing, I might
swear, flying the crimson cross, capable of holding
her own with La Casandra. As to our being inter-
cepted— life moved sluggishly in those days. Steam-
ers there were indeed, but they were few, and none
to be promptly prepared for sea to a swift summons.
The electric telegraph did not exist. I can not say
there were no railways ; but I am certain that pur-
suit would have been long rendered hopeless before
intelligence of what had taken place could be com-
municated to a port where the machinery necessary
for an ocean chase was to be found and put in mo-
tion.

But, then, were we likely to be pursued ? Wlio
would be able to guess at our destination ?

I paced the deck, depressed, anxious, full of
misgiving. I heartily wished myself out of this
business ; yet I now stood so connnitted to it that I
was at a loss to know how to act. The violent
death of Captain Dopping was a shock to me. It
sharply edged my realization of the significance of
this midnight adventure. And now that the tragic

A MIDNIGNT THEFT. 115

business was ended there was something I found
uninteUigible in it, something which pleaded to my
instincts, stirring and troubling them. Four sea-
men sat to leeward of the little galley ; they seemed
to be dozing ; their whiskered faces were bowed
over their folded arms ; a fifth man was at the
tiller. I peered through the skylight and saw Don
Lazarillo asleep in a chair. The man at the helm
was William Scott ; he had been there while Don
Christoval talked to me, and I guessed that he had
overheard every syllable of the Spaniard's narrative
of the adventures of the party ashore. I stepped up
to him and said :

" This has been a strange business."

" It has, sir."

" I am now in command here, as I suppose you
know ? "

" I didn't know, sir ; but you're the one to take
command, surely, now the captain's dead and gone,"

" Yes, but it is a command I do not desire. I
shall want a mate, some man to stand watch and
watch with me. Did you hear Don Christoval tell
me just now what happened ashore ? "

" Yes, sir. His yarn was pretty near the truth ;
not quite, though."

" Where," said I, " was he mistaken ? "

116 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" The lady was insensible when him and the
other Spanish gent brought her downstairs. It's
true that her father and the young gentleman, her
brother, bust from us when they see her being
carried through the hall, but it is not true that she
got them scratches upon her shoulder then. She
was bleeding when the two Spaniards came along
down the stairs with her. I took notice of them
marks, and so did Tubb and Butler."

" Did her father. Captain Noble, say anything
during the time you were guarding him — while
you, or whoever else it was, stood watch over
him % "

" Ay, a deal more than my memory carries, sir.
Yet it was nothing but calling names — nothing in
the way of explaining matters. It was ' TTie in-
fernal villain ! — The hrutal wretch! — Who are
these scoundrels f — Are you pirates, you ruffians f
— You sjpeak English / you are English / will you
hel-p these tioo Spaniards, English as I reckon you
to he, to kidnap an Englishwoman from her
father'' s home in England ? ' But if that had been
all ! Butler, he flourished his cutlass and threatened
to give the old gent a tap over the head if he didn't
belay his jaw. Pirates we wasnH ! We was ashore
helping a gentleman to his rights. Captain Dop-

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 117

ping told us that the law was on our side, and
there's ne'er a pirate as can say that of his call-
mg."

I continued to pace the deck a while musing on
this man's version of the adventure. The mornine:
opened wide and brilliant as the sun soared. Soon
after daybreak the breeze freshened, and the waters
were now streaming and arching into little heads of
foam as they ran with it. Mariana came out of the
cabin and was trudging forward when I called to
him:

" How is the lady ? "

Instead of responding he shrugged his shoulders
till the lobes of his long yellow ears rested upon
them, proceeded to the galley and lighted the fire.
I went a little way forward and called to the sea-
men, who at daybreak had risen from their squatting
postures and now hung together talking in low
voices. They approached me. There were four of
them, Trapp, South, Butler, and Tubb ; Scott still
grasped the tiller till he should be relieved at four
bells — that is to say, at six o'clock.

" Men," said I, " Don Christoval has asked me
to take charge of this schooner. You may have
heard him say so when he came aboard this morn-
ing."

118 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" I heard him, sir," said Andrew Trapp.

" I shall want a mate," said I. " Butler, you
filled that post under Captain Dopping. "Will you
take it afresh ? "

" If I must, I must, sir," he answered gloomily.
" No extra pay goes to the job, I suppose ? "

" 1 can not tell you. Scott says that the lady's
father behaved like a madman, and that you threat-
ened him with your cutlass."

" That's true," answered Butler. " He called us
pirates, and swore he'd have us hanged as pirates.
I never was farmed a pirate afore, and I lost my
temper, but I did him no hurt."

" It's a job," exclaimed Tubb, " which I, for one,
am sorry I ever meddled with. Yonder," cried he,
pointing to the dim haze of land, " lies Captain
Dopping, shot through the head. Had any man
said it was a-going to come to ihai^ I should have
told the Don that / wasn't one of the sailors he was
looking out for."

" That's a bad part of it," said I, " perhaps the
worst part. But another very bad part is the con-
dition of the lady. She looked to me, as she lay
in the cabin, as if she had been very roughly
handled."

The ugly cook put his head out of the galley

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 119

and stared at us. I called to him, in an angry
voice, to bear a hand and get the men's breakfast,
adding that thej had been up all night and wanted
the meal. " There's to be no loafing, no skulking,
now, d'ye understand. We're too few as it is, and
you're just one of those rusty pieces of old iron
which Avant working up, Yankee fashion ; so turn
to, d'ye hear ? " and I confirmed my meaning by a
menacing inchnation of the head. The ugly rogue
vanished, but I could hear him muttering a number
of Spanish oaths to himself.

" You were speaking of the lady, sir," said
Butler.

" She looks," said I, " to have been rascally used.
Her dress is vilely torn, as though in a struggle.
Her shoulder is badly scratched, and why should
she have fainted dead away, and why should she
remain insensible for hours — insensible still, for all
I know ? For joy at seeing her husband ? "

" She was carried dovra the stairs unconscious
by the two Spaniards," said Tubb, "her clothes was
tore then, and her flesh was scratched."

" Did the Spaniards mount the stairs alone ? "

" Alone, sir," answered Butler. " Scott and me
stood over the lady's father and his son ; and South
and Tubb guarded the door."

120 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" Who remained in charge of tlie boat ? "

" Me," said the man named Trapp.

"The name of the lady's father," said I, "is
Captain Noble. Did he say nothing more to the
point than to abuse you as pirates ? "

" ISTothing noticeable," answered Butler ; " his
wits seemed to be drove out of him by his rage."

"I heard him ask," said South, "how we, as
English sailors, could help a scoundrel Spaniard
to steal an English lady away from her father's
house in England."

" Did he say steal f " said I.

" Force was the word he used — force an English-
woman away. I didn't hear the word steal, George,"
said Butler.

" Is it a fine house ? " said I.

"A regular gentleman's castle, sir," answered
Butler. " We found the gates open ; there was a
carriage with a coachman and footman at the door ;
it was just a-driving off as we marched in."

" What became of that carriage % "

" I see the coachman pull up," answered South,
" when he was near the gates. I kept my eye on
the vehicle, for there were two men on the box of
it. When the lock was blowed away, the coachman
flogged his horses, and the whole concern disap-

A MIDNIGHT THEFT. 121

peared. I expect tliey drove off to give the alarm,
but where to, blowed if I know, for there looked to
be no houses for miles around."

" What happened next ? " said I.

But what the men now told me substantially
corresponded with Don Christoval's story : saving
that they were all agreed that the lady was insensi-
ble and in the disordered and torn condition in
which she had been brought aboard when carried
downstairs by the two Spaniards.

" Well," said I, " the schooner's decks must go
without a scrubbing this morning. Hurry up that
cook and get your breakfast, Butler, you'll re-
lieve me at eight bells. I must find out how the
lady is doing. If she's to die — and as she lay in
the cabin she looked as if she were dying — Don
Christoval will surely not want us to sail him to
Cuba."

"But where else?" said Butler, nervously and
suspiciously.

" To a French port, if you like — to any place
that is near. I wish to get out of this ship."

" So do I," said Butler, looking at his mates,
" l)ut we want our money, Mr. Portlack, and we
want to be landed in some part of the world where
we aren't going to be nabbed for this 'ere job.

122 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Let it be Cuba, if you please, sir. 'Tain't too far
off — no, bj a blooming long clialk, 'tain't too far
off."

" Get your breakfast and relieve me at eight,"
said I, and I walked aft.

CHAPTER Y.

MADAME.

Don Cheistoval remained out of sight below.
I assumed that he was attending to his wife. His
friend continued asleep in an arm-chair near the
table under the skylight ; his head was fallen back,
his mouth was wide open, and his deep and power-
ful snore was audible at the distance of the hehn.
By and by the negro boy Tom rose through the
companion hatch.

" Where is Don Christoval ? " said I.

" In dah missus' cabin, sah," he answered.

" Has consciousness returned to her ? "

He scratched his head and answered that he did
not understand me.

" Have you heard the lady speaking — have you
heard her voice ? "

" Not speak, but sing, massa."

" Sing ? " cried I, looking at him.

"Ay, massa, hke dis:" he sang a few notes.

124 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" Her song is all de same as a niiss-gal making liim
noisy pickaninny go for to sleep."

He went to the galley and presently returned
with a tray full of breakfast things. Don Lazarillo
was awakened by the negro lad laying the cloth
for breakfast. I was at the skylight at the moment
and my eye was upon the Spaniard. He started
to his feet, delivered himself of a loud yawn, looked
blankly around him with the stujDid air of the
newly awakened ; the motions of his body were
then arrested as though he had been paralyzed ;
he listened, intently gazing aft, continued to listen
while you might count twenty, the expression of
his face slowly changing from astonishment to
terror. He then made a stride and disappeared
out of the small range of view I commanded. I
strained my ear but caught nothing unusual. He
has heard the Seilora del Padron singing, thought I.

The negro boy went again to the galley and
once more returned with a second tray of dishes for
the table. I was hungry and sleepy. Kest I
might easily obtain by summoning Butler aft to
keep a look-out, but I had no notion of turning in
until I had breakfasted. I supposed that I should
be expected to eat as heretofore, when Captain Dop-
ping was alive in the vessel — that is to say, after the

MADAME. 125

Spaniards had left tlie table ; and I was wondering
when Don Christoval meant to put in an appear-
ance ; at that moment he came on deck.

His face was colorless ; I maj say it was ghastly
with what I must term its pallor of swarthiness.
The peculiar hue seemed to enlarge his eyes.
He stood curling his mustaches a moment looking
around him, and then approached me with a shallow
and unquiet smile.

"All goes well with the schooner, I hojDe, Captain
Portlack?" said he.

" Yes, sir."

" How does the weather promise ? "

" The day may keep fine, but I look for wind
presently."

" I am going to ask you," said he, with a harsher
Spanish or foreign intonation in his accent than I
had ever before noticed in his speech, " to be so
good, Senor Portlack," he raised his hat and held it
a little above his head, " to waive your custom of
taking your meals in the cabin," he ])ut his hat on.
" I deplore the necessity. You will not regard it, if
you please, as a violation of the laws of hospitality —
laws by which we are eminently governed in our
country, Neither will you suppose that your estima-
ble society is not prized and your professional help

126 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

and attainments greatly valued by Don Lazarillo de
Tonnes and myself. But — " He abruptly ceased,
giving me nothing more to interpret than a truly
royal sweep of his arm.

" You wish me to eat in my own quarters, Don
Christoval ? I shall be happy to do so ; but I pre-
sume I am to be waited upon ? "

" Most undoubtedly," he burst out. " I entreat
that you will speak every wish that may occur to
you. Your apartment shall be furnished from the
cabin : there shall be a table and all conveniences.
Tom will see to you as he sees to us. I thank
you for your ready assent ; " and he gave me a
stately bow, raising his hat again.

I returned his salute in the handsomest way I
could manage, and inquired after his wife.

" Oh, she will do, she will do," he answered.
" Patience ! the shock was great and sudden ; she
expected me indeed, but there was nothing in ex-
pectation to soften the agitation excited by my sud-
den appearance. Add to this the inhuman behavior
of her father and brother, their outrageous violent
language, their grasping her," he continued, ad-
vancing his arms and opening and clinching his
fingers as he acted the part, "in the hope of tearing
her from me. But patience, Captain Portlack."

MADAME. 12T

Then without another word he returned to the
cabin.

At eight o'clock Butler came to the quarter-
deck. I gave him the course, told him I should
turn in for a couple of hours after breakfast, and
bade him call me should the wind shift ahead, for
we were in St. George's Channel, with the Irish
coast on one side and the English coast on the other,
and in case of our having to ratch, as it is called.
La Casandra would need better piloting than But-
ler was equal to. I was about to quit him when he
said :

''Beg pardon, Mr. Portlack, what might the
Don have been a-saying just now ? " Then observ-
ing my change of expression, he quickly added,
" The question's asked quite humbly, sir. The
lono; and short of it is, we men don't feel comfort-
able. We want to make sartin that there's to be no
putting in to any new port, and least of all to an
English port."

I feigned not to understand him.

" So long as you receive the money that is
agreed upon between you and Don Christoval it
can not signify what port we put into."

" Oh, but it do, then ! " cried he, turning red in
the face. " What ! Why, only consider ! " he con-

128 , THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

tinned, raising liis voice for the edification of his
mates who stood listening forward. " Put into an
EngHsh port and see what 'ud happen ! Put into
any civilized port and see what 'ud happen ! I
know them Customs covies. What 'ud they find ?
A lady in evening attire : us without any sort of
yarn capable of satisfying the suspicions we're
bound to raise. Wliy, all hands of us 'ud be de-
tained for investigation, and then ! "

"You may ease your mind," said I, coldly.
"Don Christoval was merely talking to me about
my breakfast," and going to the main hatch I
dropped through it into my quarters.

Here I found the furniture that had belonged to
Captain Dopping's cabin ; there were also a little
table, a velvet arm-chair from the cabin, and a ruar
such as would be stretched before a fire-place lying
upon the deck. My quarters, thus equipped, looked
hospitable enough. Indeed, it was to my taste to
live thus apart It rendered me independent ; I
could do as I pleased, light my pipe, turn in or turn
out, eat and drink, and come and go with a bache-
lor-liberty that I should not have been able to enjoy
had I dwelt as Captain Dopping had in the cabin.
The one objection to my quarters lay in the gloom
of them. In fine weather there was plenty of light

MADAME. 129

to be obtained through the open hatch ; but in
stormy times the hatch must be closed, and then I
should have to live by lamp-light,

A few minutes after I had descended, the door
that communicated with the cabin opened, and the
negro lad entered with my breakfast. He put the
tray on the table, and stood as thougli expecting me
to question him.

" Is the lady still singing ? " said I.

" ISTo, sail, ebery ting quiet now,"

" That will do," said I, and he went on deck
through the main hatch.

I made a hearty meal and smoked a pipe of
tobacco — Captain Dopping had laid in a liberal
stock of pipes and tobacco. I then pulled off my
boots and coat, sprang into my hammock, and in
five minutes was as sound asleep as the dead. But-
ler wakened me by putting his head into the hatch
and shouting. I went on deck, and found my pre-
diction to Don Christoval of a fine day disproved.
The weather had thickened, the sky was a wide
spread of shadow, under which a quantity of yel-
low, wing-like shapes of scud were flying with a
velocity that might have made you suppose it was
blowing a gale of wind. The wind was damp, but
there was no rain. Blowing it was, but not yet

130 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

hard, and Butler had given no other orders than to
roll up the topgallant-sail. The breeze was on the
quarter, about north-north-west. Had we been work-
ing up against it we should have found it a strong
wind ; as it was, the schooner was swirling before
it with every cloth set, saving the little sail I have
mentioned. A strong swell chased her, and to each
hurl of the regular, giant undulation the vessel
flashed along, burying her bows in foam with the
next launching swoop in a manner to remind you of
the flight of a flying-flsh from one glittering blue
slope of brine to another.

The vessel that had been ahead of us at day-
break was now on the bow close to — a box-shaped
concern with painted ports ; she plunged heavily,
and seemed to stagger again under her heights
of canvas, hke an old woman whose balance is
threatened by the umbrella she holds up. Such a
sputtering as she made I had never before beheld.
All about her was white water as she washed
through it ; it was as though a water-spout were
foaming under her. Yet she held her own stoutly ;
and, two hours after I had been on deck, she was
still in sight in the haze astern.

I could make no use of Captain Dopping's sex-
tant in such weather as this. Don Lazarillo was

MADAME, 131

walking the deck alone, swathed to the heels in a
cloak, and a large, flapping felt hat, drawn down to
his eyebrows. He looked at me askew as I stepped
his way to glance at the binnacle. Often had I
met his fiery glance scanning me, but never so
searchingly as now. He kept his eyes npon me as
I stood at the compass watching the behavior of
the little ship as she swept to the heads of the swell.
"When I moved forward, he advanced with a forced,
deep grin which so contracted his visage that it
looked no more than a mat of hair with a hooked
nose thrust through it. He saluted me, and I bowed
low, as was my custom with these gentlemen, and
the following exchange of sentences took place,
partly by signs, partly by shouts ; but the substance
of our meaning is all that I will venture to give.
It would be impossible for the pen to convey his
broken English, and as I have not a word of Span-
ish, I dare not attempt to write the sentences with
which he intermingled his English.

" It is a very dark day."

" It is," I answered.

" It blows heavily."

" No, Don Lazarillo," said I.

" I thank the Virgin I am not seasick. Yet, the
sight of those mountains," said he, pointing over

132 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

the side with a yellow, jeweled hand, " makes me
sensible that my stomach is of the most delicate."

" By this time you should have grown accus-
tomed to the motion of a ship."

" Yes, it is so. Might not this dark day prove
fatal to us ? " Here he struck his fists together to
denote a collision between vessels.

I shook my head and touched my eyes and
pointed to the men forward, touching my eyes
again that he might gather it was the custom of
English sailors in thick weather to keep a look-out.

" How long to Cuba ? " he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. " Is Don Christoval
still resolved to go to Cuba ? " said I.

" Yes," he cried in Spanish, in the most passion-
ate way that can be imagined, while an expression
of dark suspicion entered his eyes. " You know the
way to Cuba ? "

" Oh yes," I answered smiling.

He nodded wildly as though he would say, " See
that you carry us there, that's all ! "

" How is madame ? " said I, pointing to the sky-
light.

" Better — better," he replied, with a little scowl,
and then giving me a bow he took a turn or two
and went below.

MADAME. 133

The wind freshened gradually during the after-
noon, and when I left the deck at four o'clock the
schooner was under greatly reduced canvas, driving
alone: at eleven or twelve miles an hour, her decks
dark with damp, fountains of sj^ray blowing ahead
of her off the high archings of foam upturned by
the irresistible thrust of her stem, a shrill, dreary
noise of wind in her rigging, and the fellow at the
helm and the figure on the look-out forward gleam-
ing in oil-skins and sea-helmets.

All through the night it continued to blow, and
it blew all through the three following da^^s and
niffhts. At lonoj intervals one or the other of the
Spaniards appeared on deck, but for no other pur-
pose than to take a hurried look round. Some
small theory of navigation, though utterly insuffi-
cient for practical purposes, they must have had ;
for, happening on one occasion during this boister-
ous time to look through the skylight glass, I per-
ceived them bending over a chart. Don Christoval,
with his forefinger upon it, seemed to trace a
course, while he glanced up in the direction where
there hung, screwed to the upper deck, what is
known at sea as a " tell-tale compass," that is, a
compass 'whose face is inverted, usually fixed over
the captain's chair, so that, as he sits at table, lie

134: THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

may perceive at a glance whether the helmsman is
holding the vessel to her course. I stood watching,
careless as to whether the Spaniards perceived me
or not. The skylight was closed, and their voices
were inaudible. Don Christoval seemed to explain ;
Don Lazarillo measured : there was much nodding
and gesticulation, and they frequently looked from
the chart to the "tell-tale compass." Presently
Don Christoval rolled up the chart, and the pair of
them withdrew out of reach of my sight.

I took notice that when Mariana was not em-
ployed at cooking in the galley, he was aft below
in the cabin. I could not imagine what sort of
work the two Dons could find to put the ugly,
greasy rogue to in that part of the schooner. I
now never entered the cabin, and could do no more
than conjecture what passed in it. Regularly at
meal-times, if I happened to be on deck, I would
peep through the skylight window, expecting to
find madame at table ; and if it happened that I
was off duty when meals were served in the cabin, I
would tell Butler to cast a look through the glass
and report to me if he saw anything of the lady.
But my curiosity was punctually disappointed : the
lady remained invisible.

It happened that, on the evening of the third

MADAME. 135

day of this spell of dirty weather, I went below to
get some supper. It was seven o'clock, and the
evening dark as midnight with the driving thick-
ness in the wind and the black surface of cloud
that was stretched across the sky. As I dropped
through the hatch, pulling the piece of cover over it
to keep the wet out of my quarters, I observed a
glare in the interior, which I very well knew could
not proceed from the lamp that swung under a
beam near my hammock. In fact that lamp was
unlighted. Looking past the bulkhead to which
the steps by which I descended were nailed, I found
that the door which communicated with the cabin
stood open. The wind, though abaft the beam,
gave a decided " list " or inclination to the rushing
fabric, and her rolls to windward, owing to the
swell being almost astern, were too inconsiderable to
cause the door to swing to.

The cabin was steeped in light ; the lamps were
large for tlie interior, and burned brilliantly, and
their luster was duplicated and reduplicated by the
mirrors which hung against the side. Don Christo-
val lay at full length upon a sofa ; his hand, droop-
ing to the floor, holding between its fingers an ex-
tinguished cigar, showed that he was asleep. Don
Lazarillo was either on deck or in his berth. The

136 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

dinner-clotli was upon the table, but cleared of its
furniture, though on a large swing-tray between the
lamps were one or two decanters of wine, a plate of
fruit, biscuits, and the like. But that which in-
stantly arrested my eye was the figure of Mariana
seated on a chair at the after extremity of the
cabin, where stood two berths. He bestrode his
chair as a man strides a horse, bowing his hideous
face to the back of it. His posture assured me that
lie was acting the part of sentinel. I stood viewing
him. I could see no signs of the lady's presence,
in the shape, I mean, of apparel, of any detail of
female attire. I searched with my eyes swiftly, but
narrowly, and encountered nothing to indicate the
existence of a woman on board. What did I expect
to see ? I know not, unless it were something a
lady might use, and leave on a chair or a table — a
smelling-bottle, a glove ; but this does not matter.
I wished to discover if madame had left her berth,
and I found no hint to inform me that she had
done so.

But what signified the presence of that ugly, I
may say that loathsome, sentry stationed at what I
might make sure was the door of the berth she oc-
cupied ? By the aid of the light flowing in from
the cabin, I sought and found the materials for

MADAME 137

lighting my own lamp. I then quietly closed the
bulkhead door.

A little later the hatch was lifted, and the negro
boy descended with my supper — a repast consisting
of cold meat, biscuit and fruit, and half a bottle of
wine.

" Where is the cook ? " said I.

" In de cabin, massa."

" He appears to live in the cabin. What is he
doing there now, d'ye know ? "

" Watching, sah."

"Watching what?"

" Dah lady."

" Oh ! " said I, " watching the lady, hey ? Is she
in her room ? "

" No, sah ; outside de door ob it Dey has to
watch her," said he, showing his teeth.

" Why, do yon know ? "

" I heered the tall Don say at breakfiss-time dat
she was gone for mad."

After a pause I said, " When did you hear him
say this?"

" Yesterday morning, sah."

" To whom did he say it ? "

" To Mariana, massa. T'odder gentleman was
sleeping."

138 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

I recollected that I had watched Don Lazarillo
awaken from his sleep on the previous morning,
and that I had observed the expression of terror his
face had taken when, as I might now know, he
learned for the first time, by hearing madame sing-
ing, that she had lost her mind.

" Whj did you not, before this evening, tell me
that the lady was gone for mad, as you call it ? "

" Massa nebber asked dali question."

" Have you seen her ? "

" ]^o, sail, and I dun wan' to. Her laugh make
my blood creep. It's wuss dan her singing, sail.
Kow and agin she laugh, but now she sings no mo'."

" How is she watched at night, do you know ? "

He twisted his hand to indicate the turning of a
key in its lock, by which I gathered that madame
by night was locked up in her cabin.

" Is she watched ? "

" Mariana him sometime sleep and sometime sit
at her door. "When him sleep, den Don Christoval
keep watch. When Don Christoval sleep den t'od-
der gent keep watch. Dey makes tree watches ob
it, sail."

I asked him how he knew this. He answered
in his negro speech that he had found it out by
looking and listening.

MADAME. 139

" But what are you to find out by listening ? "
said I. " You don't understand Spanish, and those
three men among themselves talk in no other lan-
guage,"

" Mariana, him say to me in de galley, ' Tom,'
him say, ' you look to de sailors' pudden. De mas-
sa wan' me to keep watch in de cabin.' I say,
' Why you no sleep now in the fok'sle ? ' and he say
he hab business in de cabin."

Here the boy ceased ; the poor fellow conveyed
his meaning with difficulty, yet I could see his
face working with the intelligence of an explana-
tion which lay in his brain, but which his tongue
wanted English to impart. That he knew the lady
was watched by the three Spaniards in the man-
ner described bv him — that is to sav, in three
watches, by night at all events, if not by day — was
certain.

He left me. I ate my supper, lighted a pipe,
and sat musing. What had driven the lady mad ?
One could not put it down to any ill-usage she had
met with aboard the schooner, because I might cer-
tainly know from the information of the negro boy
that she had awakened mad from the death -like
swoon or stupor she was plunged in when conveyed
from the boat into the cabin. Had her joy on find-

140 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE,

ino; herself witli her husband ao-ain — the husband
of her adoration — proved too much for her mind ?
Had the sudden shock of his apparition — of the
apparition of Don Christoval and his six armed as-
sociates— been rendered too enormous for her poor
brains, through the fearful significance it gathered
from the slaying of Captain Dopping by her father,
and by her father's and brother's last rush and
strusffle to wrest her from the hands of the two
Spaniards ? But then the sailors were all agreed
that she was already insensil)le when this final rush
and struggle took place, that she was borne down-
stairs and carried out of the house bleeding and
unconscious as she was when I beheld her lying in
the cabin. A haunting suspicion grew darker,
stronger, harder within me.

• •••••

I was again on deck at midnight ; the weather
had somewhat moderated, but a strong sea was run-
ning, through which the schooner, under small can-
vas, crushed her way in thunder, whitening the
water around her till the black atmosphere of the
night about her decks was charged with the ghastly
twilight of the beaten and boiling foam. But be-
fore my watch expired the deep shadow on high
was broken up. A few stars sparkled, the seas ran

MADAME. 141

with less weight, and the diminished breeze enabled
me to make sail upon the schooner.

The cabin skylight was closed, and owing to the
moisture upon the glass it was impossible to see
into the interior. Throughout the night the lamps
were kept dimly burning, and ardently as I might
peer, thirsty with curiosity, I never could distin-
guish the movement of a shadow to indicate that
those who occupied the cabin were stirring in it.

At four o'clock I went to my hammock, and at
half-past seven was on deck again. It was a line
clear morning ; large white clouds were rolling
over the dark blue sky, and the sea, swept by the
fresh wind that hummed sweet and warm over the
quarter, ran in delicate lines of foam, which writhed
and twisted in confused splendor in the glorious
wake of the sun ; while westward, the surface of the
deej) resembled a spacious field lustrous with fan-
tastic shapes of frost. Butler had heaped canvas
on the schooner, and she was sliding nobly through
the water. The men had washed the decks down,
and hung about waiting for their breakfast. From
time to time Mariana's head showed in the galley-
door. So far, aboard of us, there had been no disci-
pline to speak of. The men, indeed, acknowledged
me as captain, and sprang to my commands ; but

142 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

outside such absolutely essential duties as that of
making and shortening sail and washing down the
decks of a morning, nothing was done. The fel-
lows would hang about smoking and yarning, al-
ways ready indeed for a call, but nothing more.
Nor, indeed, was it for me to keep them employed.
I could not accept this adventure seriously — could
not regard the command I had been asked to take
as imposing any further obligation upon me than
that of navigating the schooner to a part of the
coast of Cuba adjacent to Matanzas, and again and
again I would ask myself. Will it ever come to
Cuba ? "Will it ever come to half-way to Cuba ?
There was an element of unreality in the voyage
we were now supposed to be pursuing that sub-
mitted it as a mere holiday jaunt to my fancy — a
purposeless cruise, rendering needless and aimless
the customary shipboard routine of the sea.

While I stood looking along the deck, Don
Christoval arrived. He was haggard and blanched,
as though risen from a bed of sickness. The fire of
his fine eyes was quenched, and his gaze was extraor-
dinarily melancholy and spiritless. He saluted me
gravely, but stood for some time as though lost in
thought, meanwhile taking a slow view of the whole
compass of the sea, as though in search of some ob*

MADAME. 143

ject he expected to behold upon the horizon. I be-
lieved he would return to the cabin without address-
ing me ; but I was mistaken.

" Good morning, Captain Portlack."

" Good morning, sir."

"The bad weather is passed, I hope. The
schooner is sailing very fast. It rejoices me to
reflect that every hour diminishes, by something,
the tedious miles we have to traverse."

He paused, eying me steadfastly, with the air
of a man soliciting sympathy. He then beckoned
to me with one of his grand gestures and went a lit-
tle way forward, out of the hearing of the fellow
who stood at the tiller.

" Captain Portlack," said he, " I am in great
grief."

" I am sorry to hear it," said I, looking at
him.

" My poor wife is mad."

" Mad ! " I echoed, in an accent of concern and
astonishment, not choosing, by appearing aware of
the fact, that he should suspect I had been spying
upon him or making inquiries.

" Mad," he repeated, in a low, hoarse voice.
" When she recovered from her swoon she did not
know me. She began to sing, she laughed — Mother

144 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

of God, a diabolic laugh ! She is now speechless,
never lifting her eyes, never changing her counte-
nance, and she sits thus : " he clasped his hands
before him, bent his head, fixed his eyes upon the
deck, and thus dramatically represented her condi-
tion for at least a minute.

I sought in vain in his voice, in his face, in his
air, for some hint, some color, some expression of
such grief of affection, of such emotion of sorrow,
as the love he had spoken of as existing between
them would naturally cause one to look for ; instead,
I seemed to find nothing but alarm, uncertainty,
irritability, subdued by fear.

'' We must hope," said 1, " that she will speedily
recover her mind."

" Will you descend into the cabin and see her ? "
said he, shortly, as though he had talked this invita-
tion over and settled it.

I was slightly startled, and answered, "What
good can I do, Don Christoval ? "

" You are her countryman," said he ; " your
accent, that is far purer than mine when I discourse
in your tongue, may excite her attention. Nor,
perhaps, may it be wholly with her as I fear."

" You do not wish to imply that she is sham-
ming?"

MADAME. 145

He gesticulated with a fury that I could not but
think pretended.

" No, no, poor girl ! Shamming indeed ! God
defend me from conveying such an idea. But will
you descend. Captain Portlack, and see her ? "

" I owe the preservation of my life to you," said
I, " and it is my sincere desire to be of use to you
in any honest direction. But how shall I serve you
by visiting niadame, your wife ? "

Spiritless as his eyes were, the glance he shot at
me as I pronounced these words was as piercing as
I had found his gaze when he inspected me on my
first being taken aboard his schooner. He slightly
frowned, wrenched at, rather than twirled his im-
mense mustaches, beat softly with his foot in mani-
fest effort to control himself, then said abruptly :

" Will you descend. Captain Portlack ? "

" "With pleasure," said I, and I followed him be-
low, leaving Butler, whose watch would not expire
till eight o'clock, in charge of the vessel.

Don Lazarillo was seated at the cabin table. I
see him now supporting his head on his elbow, his
bearded chin buried in the palm of his hand, and
his finger-ends at his teeth as though he were gnaw-
ing upon his nails. He was the most perfect figure

of nervous perplexity that could be imagined. He
10

146 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

looked at me swiftly, but sternly and devouringly,
too, and addressed his friend in Spanish.

" Pardon me," I exclaimed, before Don Chris-
toval could reply, " You know, gentlemen, I do not
understand your tongue. This is a strange and sad
affair. It will reassure me if you converse in the
only speech I am acquainted with."

Don Lazarillo shrugged his shoulders.

" My friend was merely expressing satisfaction
at your visit," said Don Christoval, loftily, yet
without hauteur.

He turned to the door of the berth on the port
or left-hand side of the schooner, hesitated as though
conquering an instant's irresolution of mind, then
turned the handle, motioning wdth his head that I
should enter.

The berth was a small one. It was comfortably,
almost handsomely, furnished after the style of the
cabin in which the Spaniards lived ; but I had no
eyes just then for the equipment of the box of a
place. The morning sun shone full upon the port-
hole, and the little room was hardly less brilliant
with luster than the cabin from which I had stepped.
In a low, crimson velvet arm-chair was seated the
lady I had been invited to visit. She sat in the
posture that had been theatrically represented to me

MADAME. 147

by Don Cliristoval. Her hands were locked upon
her knees, as though she had been suddenly arrested
in the act of rocking herself in a fit of wild grief ;
her head was bowed, and her eyes were rooted to the
deck. I stood surveying her for some moments, but
she never stirred ; she did not appear to breathe. I
did not witness the least movement of her eyes,
whose lids were fixed as though, indeed, she were a
figure of wax. She was dressed, or wrapped rather,
in a ruby -colored dressing-gown belonging, as I
might suppose by the gay style of it, to one of the
Spaniards. The collar of this gown came to her
throat. I was unable to see whether she was still
appareled in ball attire. Handsome diamond drops
hung motionless in her ears, and her hands, from
which the gloves had been removed, sparkled with
rings. There were three or four rings upon the third
finger of her left hand, but I did not observe that
one of them Avas a wedding ring. Her hair, that
was of a dark red and very abundant, was in great
disorder, but the remains of the wreath, which I had
noticed on her when she lay upon the sofa, had been
removed. The posture of her head left something
of her face undisclosed ; what I saw of it did not
impress me as beautiful. Her eyebrows were lighter
than her hair, almost sandy ; her cheeks and brow

148 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

were colorless as marble ; yet lier profile as I now
witnessed it was not without delicacy, and I might
suppose that when all was well with her she would
show as a pretty woman. She looked the age Don
Christoval had mentioned — twenty-two. Her stat-
ure I could not imagine, and the dressing-gown
concealed her figure.

Don Lazarillo approached in a tiptoe walk and
stood in the doorway staring at her.

"My dear one," said Don Christoval, faintly
smiling and infusing into his accents a note of
sweetness I had heard on more than one occasion
in his voice, " I have brought Captain Portlack to
see you. He is the captain of this schooner. He is
your countryman — a true Englishman. Raise your
eyes, my dear one, that you may see him," and thus
speaking, with grace inexpressible, he bent his
fine form over her and pressed his lips to her fore-
head.

Less of life could not have appeared in a statue.

" Speak to her," said Don Christoval, turning to
me.

Behind us Don Lazarillo ejaculated in Spanish.

" How shall I address her ? " said I, looking at
the tall Spaniard.

He started, sent a glance of lightning rapidity

MADAME. 149

at his friend, reflected a moment and then said,
"Accost her as Miss Noble. By that name she
may remember herself. Ay, senor, call her Ida
Noble."

I bit my lip, and, planting myself by a step in
front of the lady, bent my knee till my face was on
a level with hers.

"Look at me, madame," said I. "I know you
as Ida Noble. Look at me. I am your countryman
and yovLY friend.''^

I pronounced the word " friend " with the ut-
most emphasis I could communicate to it. She
raised her eyes without altering the posture of her
head. They were of a soft brown, and the richer
for the contrast of her hair. I never could have
imagined such eyes under eyebrows of so pale a
yellow as hers. She looked at me during a few
beats of the pulse steadfastly, and then smiled, but
there was no meaning in her smile or in her regard.
A moment after she bent her eyes down again,
and began to sing ; but the air was without music ;
the words which left her lips half articulated were
without sense.

" Yalgame Dios ! " cried Don Lazarillo.

She ceased to sing and set her lips again, and
continued to gaze at the deck without any signs of

150 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE,

life, as before. I rose to my stature, and, after
watching her a while, said to Don Christoval, "I
can do no good."

" You made her smile. Captain Portlack," said
he, in a soft whisper.

I shook my head, stepped to the door, and passed
into the cabin. The others followed, Don Christo-
val closing the door behind him.

'' I believe, with patience," said he, " that you
could bring her mind back to her."

" I am no doctor, gentlemen," said I. " I know
nothing about the treatment of the insane."

" What do 'ee say ? " exclaimed Don Lazarillo.

" What a calamit}^ to befall me ! " cried Don
Christoval, clasping his hands and upturning his
face with a look of wretchedness that certainly was
not counterfeited.

" Does she eat and drink ? " said I.

" A little, just a little," he answered. " I put
food in a plate on her knee and leave her, and when
I return a little is gone."

" Should she show no signs of mending, shall
you persevere in this voyage to Cuba, sir ? "

" Certainly," he replied passionately, with a
gesture like a blow.

I paused to hear if he had more to say. Find-

MADAME. 151

ing him silent, I bowed and went on deck. Butler
stood at the rail abreast of the skylight. Though
his face habitually carried a sulky look, owing to
the sour expression into w^iich the extremities of
his mouth were curved, his was a face to assure one
on the whole that its owner was a good average
honest English sailor. I am not of those who
believe that the character is to be read in the face :
but my own experience is, that I was never yet
deceived by a man to whom I had taken a liking
because of his face. Yet I admit that many honest
souls, many excellent hearts, go through the world
with repellent countenances. Hence the unwisdom
of judging by the face.

I stepped up to Butler, and looking him in the
eyes I exclaimed, " Butler, I believe we have been
cheated into the commission of a gallows act by the
lies of those two Spaniards down below in the cabin."

His intelligence was sluggish, and he looked at
me with a gaze slow of perception.

" I have just seen the lady," said I.

" Ha ! and how is she a-doing, sir ? "

" She is mad — undoubtedly driven mad by the
outrage that has been perpetrated upon her and
hers."

" Tom was saying she was off her head, and why,

152 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE,

'cause lie heard her sing and laugh. Singing and
laughing ain't no sign of madness. I asked Mariana
the question plain, and he says ' No ' to it — ' No,' in
the hearing of us all ; but now you've seen her, sir,
and she is mad ? "

" She is utterly mad. Mad as from a broken
heart. She sits like a figure-head, without a stir."

I paused. " She is no more Don Christoval's
wife than I am," said I.

" Are you sure of that ? " he cried, sharply.

" I have been almost sure of it for some time —
I am quite sure of it now."

He looked as alarmed as a man with strong
bushy whiskers and a skin veneered with mahogany
by the weather could well appear. " How have ye
made sure, Mr. Portlack ? "

" She has no wedding ring."

He chewed upon this and then said : " But a wed-
ding ring ben't no infallible sign of marriage, is it,
sir ? I've heered my mother say that she once lost
her wedding ring and was always going to buy
another, but didn't, and for years she went without
a wedding ring, though father was alive most of the
time, and a perticlar man, too."

" If the lady below were a married woman she
would wear a wedding ring," said I.

MADAME. 153

"Ay," said he, with a knowing look entering
his eyes, " but suppose the father had obhged the
lady to take her wedding ring off? What more
natural, seeing how he was all agin the marriage ? "

To this I could return no other answer than a
shake of the head. He eyed me with a small air of
triumph.

" If there's nothing more to make ye doubt, Mr.
Portlack," said he, "than the want of a wedding
ring on the lady's linger, I'm for allowing that the
Don's yarn's true."

As I had nothing more than suspicion to oppose
to his desire to believe in the story, I contented my-
self with saying : " You will find that I am right,
nevertheless. I shall go and get some breakfast,
and will relieve you in ten or twelve minutes."

I walked to the main-hatch, but he followed me.
" Supposing it as you say, sir," he inquired, " what
'ud be the consequences of the job to us men?"

" Transportation for life."

He muttered something under his breath and
then said, " And supposing the lady to be his lawful
wife, sir ? "

" I am no lawyer," I answered, and dropped
through the hatch.

CHAPTER VI.

A TKAGEDY.

I WAS prepared to find that Butler had carried
my words forward. I returned to the deck after
breakfast, and the man trudged to the forecastle, and
not long afterward I observed the four seamen, the
fifth being at the helm, engaged in earnest conver-
sation. They talked, pipe in mouth, their hands
deep buried in their capacious breeches pockets, and
sometimes they talked with their backs upon one
another, and sometimes they would pace the deck,
passing one another, but always talking, and fre-
quently they directed their eyes aft, insomuch that I
expected every minute that the whole group would
approach me and oblige me to share in the discus-
sion.

My manner and my words when I had visited
madame below had been altogether too pronounced
for so shrewd an intelligence as that of Don Cliris-
toval to miss the true meaning of. In short, I had

A TRAGEDY. 155

as good as said that I did not consider the lady to be
his wife ; that she had been abducted — ferociously
and inhumanly stolen from her father's home, and
that we Englishmen who formed his crew had been
betrayed into an act of criminal villiany by his ras-
cally lies. All this I was conscious I had as good as
said, because, meaning it, I had looked it, and, in a
sentence, I had suggested it. I therefore concluded
that the two Spaniards would talk this matter of my
suspicions over, decide upon some prompt course of
action, and come to me on deck — but what to do and
what to say? Would Don Christoval admit the
adventure to be one of abduction, pleading the
necessity of representing himself as married that he
might obtain the assistance of English seamen, sinc'e
it was clear that he would not ship Spanish sailors
for the expedition ; or would he approach me with
threats, defying me to disprove his statement that
the lady below was his wife, and giving me to under-
stand that if I did not mind my own business

My mind was raml)ling in speculations of this
kind when I heard the sound of a guitar and a voice
singing. The skyliglit lay open ; I heard it as dis-
tinctly as though I were in the cabin. Don Laza-
rillo sat smoking at the table, keeping time with his
fingers, the rings upon them sparkling as he tapped.

156 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

It was not he who was playing the guitar and sing-
ing ; therefore it was Don Christoval. The sounds
came from the after-part of the interior^ and I had
no doubt whatever that madame's door was open^
and that Don Christoval was touching the strings
and lifting up his voice with some quite superstitious
or quite rational hope of exorcising the demon of
madness out of the girl by the bewatching music he
was making.

Bewitching it was. I listened, wholly fascinated
by it. His voice was a clear, sweet, most thrilling
and lovely tenor, soft and yet penetrating, and con-
trolled, so far as I could possibly judge, by the most
exquisite art. Whether he had ever before pro-
duced his guitar I can not say ; certainly this was
the first time I had heard the sound of it. He sang
several airs; one of them so haunted me that I
remember long afterward humming it over to a
friend of mine who was a very good musician in his
way, and he instantly pronounced it a composition of
Mozart, giving it an Italian name which I have for-
gotten. I should never have supposed that music
possessed the magic claimed for it until I heard that
sweet, thrilling tenor voice, threaded by the tones
of the delicately-touched guitar. The songs in suc-
cession wrought a fairy atmosphere for ihe senses.

A TRAGEDY. 157

The schooner melted out — the ocean vanished. I
was transported to a land sweet with the aroma of
the orange grove^ romantic wdth Moorish palaces,
melodious with the laughter of dancers and the
merry rattle of the castanets.

Bless me, thought I, as I paced the deck afresh
when the singing was ended, a man need not go to
sea to visit distant countries when he may travel
farther than sail or steam can convey him by sitting
at home and listening to a tenor voice accompanied
by a guitar.

Half an hour later the two Spaniards made their
appearance. I had marked the hideous cook steal
to the companion-way, and judged that he was keep-
ing watch. The two Dons, with lighted cigars in
their mouths, walked the deck arm-in-arm. Don
Christoval seemed to notice that the men forward
were observino; him with unusual attention. I
assumed this because I perceived that he suddenly
put on an air of carelessness, of ease, even of gayety,
such as certainly was not visible in him wdien he
first showed himself. This air I further remarked
was swiftly copied by his companion, but on Mm it
sat with a horrible awkwardness. He had neither
the figure, the beauty, nor the skill to act as his
friend did.

158 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Would Don Christoval cliallenge me for my sus-
picions ? If so, I should be honest with him ; tell
him in unmistakable English what my conviction
was ; inform him that I would no longer share in
the dastardly crime into which he had betrayed his
sailors ; and insist that I should be transshipped to
the first vessel that passed, or that I should be suf-
fered to carry the schooner close enough to a coast,
the nearest at hand, to enable me to get ashore. It
was likely enough that my full mind showed in my
face. A few times I caught him eyeing me askance,
but, beyond calling out some commonplace to me
about the weather, the progress of the schooner,
and so forth, he said nothing.

It was, however, clear to me that, let his
thoughts be what they would, he could say nothing.
I was the only navigator aboard the vessel ; he was
entirely at my mercy, therefore ; he would rightly
fear that any menaces, any bullying, any tall-talk,
must only result in causing me to sullenly throw
up my command ; in which case the schooner would
be but a little less helpless than were she reduced
to the condition of a sheer hulk by a gale of wind.

At noon I took an observation. Butler came aft
to relieve me, and I went to my quarters to work out
my sights. When I had worked out my sights and

A TRAGEDY. 159

found out the position of the schooner on the cliart,
1 liglited a pipe and sat down to reflect. I was now
so perfectly sure that the unhappy young lady in
the cabin had been kidnapped that my thoughts
were never for an instant influenced by the consid-
eration that there might be a probability of the
Spaniard's story proving true. Everything pointed
to this expedition as an adventure of abduction.
The sailors affirmed that the girl was bleeding and
insensible when carried through the hall past the
room in which two of them with drawn cutlasses
were guarding her father and brother. This, then,
signified that she had been forcibly seized^ and the
state of her apparel and the scratches upon her
shoulder proved that there had been a struggle.
"Would she have struggled had Don Christoval been
her husband, to whom she was yearning to be re-
united ?

My blood felt hot in my veins when I thought
upon this outrage ; when I reflected how I had
been made a party to this deed of villainy ; how I,
as an Englishman, had been courted by a cunning,
clever lie to abet the stealing of a countrywoman
of my own from her father's home in England by
a brace, as I might take them, of unprincipled
Spanish adventurers.

160 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

Now, wliile I thus sat musing over m.j position,
and considering what course to shape to carry me
clear of the dangerous association into which misad-
venture had brought me, I was startled by a cry in
the adjacent cabin — a cry sharp^ abrupt, terrible :
affecting the ear as a lightning flash affects the eye.
The pipe I was about to raise to my lips was ar-
rested midway. I believe I am no coward, yet
I must own that that cry, that penetrating cry,
seemed to thicken my blood, seemed to stop the pul-
sation of my heart.

But the pause with me was brief. I dashed
down my pipe, sprang to the bulk-head door and
flung it open. And now what a picture did I see !
The tall, commanding figure of Don Christoval was
in the act of sinking to the deck ; his hand was
upon the table, but the fingers were slowly slip23ing
from the edge of it, and, even as I looked, the man
without a sound fell at his length and lay motion-
tionless. In the doorway of the port or left-hand
berth stood the lady whom I have heretofore styled
Madame, but whom I will henceforth call Ida
Noble. She grasped a knife in her hand — a long
carving knife it seemed to me, and I remember no^
ticing a red gleam in it as the vessel rolled, slipping
the sunshine out of a mirror toward where the gir]

A TRAGEDY. 161

was. Slie stood erect, with her eyes fixed upon the
body of the Spaniard ; she was as stirless as he ;
tlie figures of them both at that instant might have
passed as a brace of posture-makers representing a
tragedy in one of those drawing-room performances
called tableaux vivants. Behind a chair on the
starboard side of the table crouched the figure of
Mariana. He squatted, and his attitude was exactly
that of a monkey. His face was green ; his wide-
open eyes disclosed twice the usual surface of eye-
ball ; his features were convulsed with terror, and
nevef yet was there an artist whose imagination
could have reached to the height of that fellow's
hideousness, as he crouched, stabbed also, as I then
believed, though this was not so.

A mad woman grasping a long knife is a for-
midable object ; much more formidable is she when
that knife is stained with blood, and when the per-
son she has slain is still in view, lying a corpse a
little distance away from her. On my showing my-
self, Mariana cried out, but whether in Spanish or
English I knew not. "What was I to do ? "What
would you do were you suddenly confronted by a
mad woman armed with a long knife? I looked
up at the skylight and saw the horror-stricken coun-
tenance of Don Lazarillo peering down ; but even
11

162 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE,

as my eye went in a glance to the Spaniard's livid
face, one of the sailors, and then another of the sail-
ors, came to his side. Count twenty, and the time
you will occupy in doing so will comprise the
period from the moment of my opening the door
to look out down to this instant.

Next moment the girl threw the knife on the
deck with a gesture of abhorrence, courtesied with
irony to the body of Don Christoval, and closed the
door of the berth upon herself. Then there was a
rush. We could all find our courage now. Mari-
ana sprang from behind his chair, overturning it,'
Don Lazarillo, followed by the two sailors, came in
a few bounds through the companion-hatch. I
stepped to the side of Don Christoval's body, and
stood looking upon liim. Stone dead I knew him
to be. In Calcutta during a cholera outbreak, and
on board an emigrant ship visited with fever, I had
many a time stood beside the dying and the dead,
and the spectacle of death was very familiar to me.

" Lock her door ! " shrieked Don Lazarillo.

One of the seamen picked up the knife and
viewed it at arm's length. I carefully turned the
body over.

"Ay, there it is," said I, pointing to a cut
slightly stained with blood in the Spaniard's waist-

A TRAGEDY. 163

coat. The wound was in the left ribs, and one had
but to glance at the knife to cease to wonder that
the man should have dropped dead.

" Lock the door ! " again shrieked Don Lazarillo
in his broken English, looking from the body of his
friend to the door, and from the door to the body
of his friend, and recoiling, and shrinking and hug-
ging himself, and so munching his lips that one
watched to see froth upon them — doing all this as
he looked.

Mariana repeatedly crossed himself, uttering all
sorts of Spanish ejaculations in a voice like the sub-
dued low of a calf.

" Is he dead, sir ? " asked one of the sailors.

" He can never be more dead," said I, stooping
to look into the face of the body. "They drove
her mad, and this is how she requites them. A
cruel, Ijloody business, my lads. Fling that knife
overboard."

The fellow launched it javelin-fashion through
an open porthole. Don Lazarillo began to scream
out in Spanish. His meaning might have some
reference to securing the lady ; I do not know.

" Silence ! " I roared. " Do you want to be the
next victim ? " and in my wratli I made an infuri-
ate gesture as of stabbing; on which, with one wild

164 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

look at me, he fled up the companion steps and re-
mained above, viewing us through the skyhght,

Butler and another seaman, both very pale, and
fetching their breath quickly, entered the cabin and
looked at the body.

" Here's a murdering job to happen ! " said
Scott.

" "Who's done this ? " cried Butler, who had
been somewhere forward when Don Christoval's
wild death-shriek had sounded.

Mariana, with a paralytic gesture, pointed to
Miss Noble's berth.

" Who's done it ? " rej)eated Butler, in a voice
strong and hoarse with horror.

" The girl whom these Spaniards have driven
mad," said I. I turned to Mariana. " Did you see
Don Christoval stabbed ? "

" Ah, Dios ! yes," he answered ; and in lan-
guage which is to be as little conveyed as his voice,
or the expressions which chased his face, which at
every instant gave a new character to his ugliness,
he contrived to make us understand this : that
Don Christoval had entered the lady's room, where
he, Mariana, heard him address her soothingly;
that the door was suddenly flung open, and that,
at the same moment, even as the Spaniard stood

A TRAGEDY. 165

on the threshold, the girl buried the knife in his
side.

" How did she come by the knife ? " cried Butler.

Mariana, trembling violently, wath his eyes fixed
upon the door of Miss Noble's berth, as though at
every moment he expected to behold it thrown
open, made us understand that the negro boy, some
time during the morning, had left a basket of the
cabin cutlery upon the table, and that the girl must
have looked out and possessed herself of a knife at
some moment when the two Spaniards were on
deck, and when he — Mariana — had quitted his post
of sentry to enter Don Christoval's berth. This
was conjecture on the fellow's part, but beyond
doubt it was accurate.

Don Lazarillo continued to gaze at us through
the skylight with an expression as of a horrible
sneer upon his face. I again stooped over the form
of Don Christoval, felt his pulse, and examined his
half -closed, fast-glazing eyes, then bade a couple of
the seamen pick the body up and convey it to the
cabin the Spaniard had occupied. While this was
doing, I grasped the handle of the door of Miss
Noble's room.

"Mind!" shrieked Don Lazarillu from above.
Mariana ran on deck. I felt the idleness of an-

166 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

nouiicing myself by knocking. More knives than
one it was possible slie might have concealed ; I
therefore at first held the door but a little way open
and looked in.

The girl was standing beside the bunk or sleep-
ing-shelf ; her elbows were upon the edge of it, her
cheeks in her hands, and she stood motionlessly
gazing, as I might suppose, through the port-hole.
She was robed as in the morning ; that is to say, in
a crimson dressing-go^vn, which, in that era of short
skirts, clothed her to her heels. She was but a lit-
tle above the average stature of woman, though she
had looked far taller than she really was when she
stood in the doorway grasping the knife, with her
eyes upon the dead Spaniard,

Finding her unarmed, I entered, carefully
sweeping the room as I did so with my eyes for
any signs of a knife or other weapon. Tiie four
seamen stood in the doorway, and she did not turn
her head. I approached her, keeping a distance
of some two or three feet between us, and prepared,
poor lady ! for any act of violence. Still she con-
tinued to stare through the port-hole.

" Miss Noble," said I, " you smiled at me this
morning. Look at me now. You will remember
me as your friend."

A TRAGEDY. 167

She turned lier head slowly ; not more mechani-
cal could have been that extraordinary movement
had clock-work produced it. When her soft brown
eyes — in which assuredly I witnessed nothing of
that sparkle or fire of madness which is said to
burn in the vision of the insane — were upon me,
she frowned and bit her under lip, exposing her
small white front teeth. I beheved from her ex-
pression that she was struggling with her memory.
She then suddenly turned fully round, as though
sensible of being watched from the door, and the
sailors, to the wild look she gave them, stirred and
fell back with uneasy shuiHing motions of their feet.
She stared at them for a while, and afterward at
me, preserving her frown, and holding her lip under
her teeth ; she was deadly white, but spite of her
frown, which you would have thought must give
an expression of disdain or anger or contempt to
her brow, her face was meaningless, Slie eyed me
fixedly for some moments, then, with the former
slow motion of her head, resumed her first posture.
I stepped to the door.

" What is to be done ? " said I.

" It's a cruel business. The Spaniard's been
rightly sarved out," exclaimed one of tlie sailors.

" What is to be done ? " I repeated; for here, to

168 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

be sure, was a condition of ocean life tliat had never
before been encountered by my experience.

The men gazed at the girl in silence. I mused,
and presently said, " One of you keep this door ;
the rest of us must turn to and search the cabin, to
make sure there is nothing in it with which she can
hurt herself."

There were four of us, and there being little to
examine, we had soon satisfied ourselves that there
was no weapon anywhere hidden. She took not
the least notice of us ; but when I explored her
sleeping-berth, upon whose edge, as I have told you,
her elbows reposed, she fell back a step or two, and
then, going to the arm-chair, seated herself, clasping
her knees and rooting her eyes to the deck.

" Will she have a knife about her? " said Butler,
in a hoarse whisper.

I thoroughly considered this, and, after a nar-
row scrutiny of her, decided that she had not con-
cealed a knife upon her, and I was the more wilHng
to believe so because I had not the heart — I will
not say the courage — to search her. It shocked me
to think of offering any violence to the poor girl,
and violence I knew it must come to — she would
resist, a struggle would increase her madness — if I
laid my hands upon her. But I was certain she had

A TRAGEDY. 169

not concealed a knife. Tlie dressing-gown she wore
was ^vitliout a pocket. The sleeves were loose, and
while she stood at the bunk I had noticed that her
arms, whose wrists were still clasped by bracelets,
were bare, whence I concluded that the dressing-gown
concealed the ball attire she had been brought aboard
in. So I decided that she had not secreted a weap-
on, because, recollecting her attire as she lay upon
the sofa in the cabin after she had been broua^ht to
the schooner, I could not conceive that it offered
any points for the concealment of a knife.

I closed the door upon her, and we stood outside
consulting. Our debate determined us to this :
that while she continued in this passive condition
she was to be left as she was ; that for the present
the five seamen would take it turn and turn about
to watch that she did not quit her room ; that she
was to be fed as heretofore^ that is to say, food
and wine were to be placed before her, of which
she would partake if she chose, for no man could
compel her to eat. Then, no longer choosing that
the helmsman should remain alone on deck — for
Don Lazarillo, Mariana, and the negro boy counted
for nothing — I went to the companion steps and
was followed by Butler and two others.

Don Lazarillo and Mariana stood a little way

170 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

forward of the skylight. They conversed, and
their gestures expressed unbounded horror and dis-
may. On our appearing, they fell silent and
watched us. Some distance beyond them was the
figure of the negro boy. There was nothing in
sight. The white canvas soared round and brilliant,
and the rigging was vocal with the gushing of the
blue breeze. Astern of us ran an arrowy wake of
foam, and off the weather bow rose a steady sound
of seething, like to the noise made by the boiling
foot of a cataract heard afar.

I took up a position near the tiller, that was in
the grasp of the seaman Tubb, and the sailors stood
near me.

" What's happened below ? " said Tubb.

^' The tall Spaniard's been stabbed dead by the
mad lady," answered South.

Tubb delivered himself of a long whistle, fol-
lowing it on by an agitated swing of the tiller that
hove the schooner to the wind two points before he
could recover her.

" And now what is to be done ? " said I. " You
see the pass we've been brought into. Two men
dead of the adventure, and the rest of us guilty of
a deed that must earn us transportation for life
should the law get hold of us. "What's to be done,

A TRAGEDY. 171

I say ? Is this voyage to Cuba to be prosecuted ?
Our duty is — and let me tell you our policy is — to
make all the restitution that is possible, and that
we can alone do by conveying the poor lady home."

" I ain't going home," cried Butler in a voice of
obstinacy, smiting his thigh.

Don Lazarillo and Mariana crept, or sneaked
rather, by a pace nearer to us and stood listening.

" And / ain't going home," said Tubb, fetching
the head of the tiller a whack. " You talk of
transportation for life, Mr. Portlack ; d'ye want it
to happen, sir ? "

" ]!^ro," I answered ; " but I wish to do what is
right, and to make it as right as right can be by
doing it quickly. The lady must be restored to
her friends."

" JSTo oiEfense, Mr. Portlack," said Scott, " but we
aren't to forget that you're on the right side of the
liedge. You wasn't in the melhee ; we was. Your
going home can't sinnify ; ourn means lagging for
all hands."

The two Spaniards sneaked a little closer.

" I wish to suggest nothing likely to imperil
you," said I. " Though I was never willingly of
you — you don't want me to tell you how it happens
tliat I'm here ; yet being of you, you'll find me with

172 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

jou, content to sliare in all tliat may befall you.
As to my being on the right side of the hedge,"
cried I, rounding upon Scott, " that's but a notion
of yours. The lawyers may think very much
otherwise. But I say this, that since these two
Spaniards have decoyed our heads into a noose,
the only way to avoid being strangled is to whip
our heads out again ; and d'ye ask how that's to be
done ? My answer is, Do what is right. Act so
that you'll be able to say, should you come to be
charged as helpers in this crime of abduction :
"We believed the lady to be the Spaniard's wife ; we
were told that a man had a right to his own, and
we were willing to help him to his own, but the
moment we found we had been deceived we turned
to like honest men, to make all the amends in our
power by restoring the poor lady to her friends.
That is what's in my head, and it is the advice I
give you, and wish you to act upon for my sake and
for yours."

South looked thoughtfully at Butler ; but Butler,
with an angry countenance, vengefully smiting his
thigh again with his clinched fist, cried out,
" There's to be no going home with me. There's
to be no taking the chance of the law with me.
There's to be no risking even a week o' jail with

A TRAGEDY. 173

me. Ye may call it Cuba, or ye may call it
Madagascar, but let no man speak of the United
Kingdom. I've got my liberty, and I'm for keep-
ing of it. 'Sides," he whipped out, " who's going
to pay me my money, now the Spaniard as hired us
is dead and gone 1 "

The eyes of the men at this were at once bent
upon Don Lazarillo.

" Sooner than go home I'd start away in that
there boat," said Scott, pointing to the cutter on
the main deck, " and take my chance of making the
land or being picked up. I once had a fortnight of
quod for refusing to sail after joining. That was
enough for me. No more, thank ye." He stepped
to the rail and violently expectorated.

" "Who's going to pay us ? " said Trapp. " If
t'others are of my mind, there'll be no leaving this
schooner till we've received every farden of our

money. We've earnt it, by ! " he added, hitting

the tiller head another thump.

"Mr, Portlack," said Butler, gazing at me
gloomily and mutinously, " you still talk as if you
was cocksure that the lady wasn't the tall gent's
wife."

I paused while I gazed at him, then, with vehe-
ment strides, walked up to Don Lazarillo.

174 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" You and your dead friend," I cried, staring
into the slirinking and working face of the man,
" have cheated me and the men here by your hes
into the commission of a crime. You know," I
thundered, determined to terrorize him into a con-
fession of the truth, "that the poor lady below,
whom you have driven mad, was not Don Christo-
val's wife. Dare to tell me she was, you villain,
and I'll fling you overboard ! "

" What ees it you say ? " he cried, with his
swarthy face of the color of pepper with fear.

" You understand me ! " I shouted, addressing
Mariana. " You have been in the secret, too,
from the beginning. Own it, you dog, own it, or
I'll throttle you."

I raised my hand ; the ugly creature delivered a
singular cry and dropped on his knees.

" Seiior Portlack," he whined, " spare my life,
for the blessed Yirgin's sake, and if I do not tell you
the truth may Satan catch my soul now and carry
it away to eternal torment. The seilorita was not
the cavalier's wife. The caballero's story was true
in all but that part. She was the lady of his love,
but not his wife. If I'm not speaking the truth,
may my soul be tormented for ever and ev^er."
Saying which he crossed himself and stood up.

A TRAGEDY. I75

The obligation of feigning wrath alone pre-
served me from bursting into a langii at the sight
of his hideous face convulsed with fear.

" Explain to Don Lazarillo," cried I, sternly,
" what you have told me."

He did so. Don Lazarillo watched him with
sparkling eyes and ashen cheek, and on his ceasing
made as if he would strike him.

" Will you deny that Mariana speaks the truth ? "
I exclaimed.

The Spaniard shot at me a look of mingled
malice, hate, and fright, then, with a shrug of the
shoulders that convulsed his figure, he turned his
back, and, with clasped hands, stood viewing the
ocean over the rail.

" Now, men," said I, addressing Butler and the
others, "you have heard the truth for yourselves, and
you may read it also in that Spanish gentleman's
behavior. Isn't it abominable that we Englishmen,
or let me say that you Englishmen, should have
been tricked by the lies of a brace of foreigners
into helping them to steal a poor young lady of
your own country from her father's home % For
what purpose was this done ? There was little
enough love in it, I'll swear. She is no doubt an
heiress, and the Don that lies dead below hoped,

176 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

by stealing her, to steal lier fortune also ; and you
may take it that yonder gentleman," I continued,
pointing at Don Lazarillo, " entered upon this in-
human undertaking as a speculation. That's my
notion, and if he understands what I'm saying, he
knows that I've hit the truth. He was to share
in the plunder, on condition of his finding money
enough to equip this expedition."

My eyes rested upon Mariana as I spoke ; the
ugly rascal, to whom my words seemed perfectly
intelligible^ let his head sink, in an affirmative
gesture. The wretch, in fact, was horribly fright-
ened, feared for his life, in short, and by the looks
of him I might not only know that he was willing
to tell all, but to tell more than all, to appease my
wrath, which I must own was largely simulated.

Butler stepped up to Don Lazarillo, whose back
was still upon us, and touched the man's elbow
with his forefinger.

" Here," said he, " what about my,money ? "

Don Lazarillo appeared deaf, and continued to
stare over the rail. Butler thrust at his elbow again
with his long forefinger.

" 1 am asking," he said, " about my money.
Who's a-going to pay me ? "

The other seamen now drew close to the Span-

A TRAGEDY. 177

iard, -who stood as tliougli deaf. Mariana rapidly
and hoarsely uttered a sentence or two in Spanish,
probably a translation of Butler's words. Don La-
zarillo then whipped round ; his eyes glowed like
live coals, but his ashy pallor was more defined than
before. On finding himself confronted by the three
sailors, he placed himself in the posture of a man at
bay with a sword in his hand, only, happily, he was
without a sword.

" What do you want ? " he cried.

"Who's a-going to pay us?" shouted Butler, un-
necessarily exerting his lungs, as the custom is with
us English when we address foreigners, whose in-
capacity to understand seems to suggest deafness to
our insular minds.

Don Lazarillo, looking toward me, exclaimed,
" I speak about dat wiz ze Capitan Portlack."

" Ay," cried Scott, " but if you can talk to him,

you can talk to us. It's we that's consarned. It's

us as wants to know who's a-going to pay us.

You've brought us into a blooming mess with your

lies, and the five of us men, as Captain Dopping

shipped at Cadiz, stands for to be transported if so

be as our law catches hold of us, and all along of

you and him as lays below. If you can talk to Mr.

Portlack, you can talk to us."
12

1Y8 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" What you weesh me say ? " cried the miserable
Spaniard, extending his arms, and casting a look of
entreaty at me.

" Who's a-going to pay us men ? " vociferated
Butler, striking the palm of his left hand with a leg-
of-mutton fist. The men stood so close to Don
Lazarillo that he was forced to dodge his head here
and there to catch a sight of Mariana, to whom he
cried out something in his native tongue.

" Seiior Portlack," said the cook, in a cringing
attitude, " Don Lazarillo beg me say he will speak
wid you. I vsdll translate."

" Let it be so, men," I exclaimed ; " you'll do no
good by shouting questions to a man who doesn't
understand you."

They drew away sulkily. Don Lazarillo pulled
off his hat to pass a large colored silk handkerchief
over his forehead. He then stepj)ed up to me.
The cook posted himself close to him, and the sail-
ors, with whom now was the negro boy, took up a
station within easy earshot. Mariana translating,
the dialogue took this form ; —

" The men wish to know who is to pay them
their wages ? "

" Don Christoval is now dead," answered the
Spaniard. " This adventure therefore terminates ! "

A TRAGEDY. 179

"How? — terminates?" I cried. "We are still
upon the high seas. "We have still the young lady
•with us to restore to those from whom you and
your friend stole her. ISTo, no, this adventure has
not yet terminated ! "

" "Wliat do you mean to do ? " he asked.

" That is no answer to my question. Who will
pay those men for the work they have done, the
risks they have run, and have yet to run ? "

He put his hand to his brow, and, after a pause,
said, " I must think."

The sailors fell a-shouting exclamations. The
chorus was swelled by the voices of the man at the
helm, and by the fellow below, who had got upon
the cabin table, and stood with his head in the open
skylight, listening.

" Silence ! " I cried ; " how am I to transact
your business if you interrupt me ? The men," I
continued, addressing the Spaniard, "look to you
for payment. They will not lose sight of you until
you pay them. Have you money with you, or the
equivalent of money ? " I added, fixing my eyes
upon his rings and brooch ; " for / must be paid,
Don Lazarillo, and they must be paid."

" I will answer, I will be honorable. I will
give my word ; and the word of a Spanish gentle-

180 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

men is gold." A growl proceeded from tlie sea-
men. " But first, as a matter of courtesy, to help
my mind in its blindness — for the death of my
friend has caused my brains to spin round in my
head — I entreat you, senor, to tell me what are
your intentions ? "

" To restore the young lady to her friends."

" What ! " he cried, shouting the words with a
face of horror to Mariana; "you will proceed to
England ? "

I responded with a vehement nod.

" Then vot sail become of me ? " he exclaimed in
English.

I shrugged my shoulders. He folded his arms
tightly upon his breast, and, with bowed head, fell
to measuring a few feet of the deck. "We all
watched him in silence while he thus walked. Sud-
denly he stopped, and, turning upon Mariana, ad-
dressed him volubly and with amazing energy,
making a very windmill of his arms. I knew that
he was saying a great deal more than Mariana could-
translate, more, indeed, to judge from the expres-
sion that entered the cook's face, tlian the repulsive-
looking creature would choose to translate. Never-
theless, I waited in patience, making a single gesture
of command to the sailors to be still.

A TRAGEDY. 181

Mariana then spoke ; the substance of his speech
was this: Don Lazarillo asked for a few hours.
Ke desired to look over the effects of his dead
friend ; he desired time to mature a proposal which
he hoped to make to me. This was substantially all
that Mariana translated. Yet, owing to his slow
delivery and to his broken-winded English, the
matter he dehvered appeared to contain much more
than was in it. I had no doubt, however, that Don
Lazarillo in his speech had acquainted the fellow
with some half-formed scheme in his mind, as good
for Mariana perhaps as for himself.

I told the cook to inform the Don that we
would give him until six o'clock that evening, and
that if he was not ready with his proposals by that
hour, I should shift the schooner's helm for Eng-
land, where, on my arrival, it would be my duty to
deliver him and Mariana into the hands of justice.
The cook, in translating this, was almost as ashen
in color as the other.

Don Lazarillo descended into the cabin. Butler
came up to me.

"You're merely frightening the man, I hope,
sir," said he, " with this here talk of sailing to Eng-
land?"

" Let's settle with him first," I answered, " and

182 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

then I'll call a council of the crew. Meanwhile it
is senseless to keep the schooner under all this can-
vas. Let us shorten sail and lay her with her head
to the east until we hear what Don Lazarillo has to
say for himself."

He looked doubtfully round the sea, then con-
sented. So we reduced the schooner down to what
is termed a scandalized mainsail and a jib, and all
that afternoon she lay under that canvas, blowing
along very quietly eastward.

Some time about four o'clock I went below and
asked Trapp, who was still on watch in the cabin,
if all had been quiet in the lady's cabin.

" Ne'er so much noise as a mouse would have
made, sir," said he.

I lightly tapped on the young lady's door, and
without waiting for a response, which I knew I
should not obtain, I turned the handle and looked
in. The girl was seated in her chair, but her head
lay back upon the cushioned round of it. Her
eyes were sealed, and her lips apart. I looked at
her, scarcely knowing whether she was alive or
dead ; but presently observing that her bosom rose
and fell, I went to her side, put my ear to her
mouth, and heard her breathing regularly and
peacefully. I stood a while looking at her, my

A TRAGEDY. 183

heart full of pity. I peered closely at her fingers :
her rings were rich and beautiful — diamonds and
rubies of great value ; but I might make sure now
there was no wedding-ring buried among the three
or four which armored the finger the ring would
have been on. One little foot showed, and I per-
ceived that she was shod with white satin. There
was something to shock me in the ironic contrast
created by the sight of that satin shoe — the contrast
between the grim and tragic reality that was now
hers and the festal vision of the ball-room, with its
swimming figures, the bright music of the dance,
the gleam of fans, the scent of fiowers.

I was happy to discover that she was able to
sleep. It seemed to my plain mind a good sign,
for I had often been told that sleeplessness was one
of the horrible conditions of insanitv ; that not to
be able to sleep drove men mad ; and that when
they were mad still they were sleepless. Strange
as it will seem, I could not, I did not, associate any
horror of assassination with that restful figure. I
had seen her standino^ at the door, and had marked
the red gleam upon the knife she held ; I had seen
the tall and handsome Spaniard in the act of fall-
ing, tlien tumbling his whole length and expiring.
Yet I could gaze at this poor girl without the least

184 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

emotion of aversion, without tlie least sense of that
sort of horrid unaccountable fascination with which
red-handed crime constrains the gaze of the spec-
tator.

This was not, I think, because I knew she was
mad, and, being mad, irresponsible, and, being irre-
sponsible, virtually guiltless. JSTo ; it was because
of a singular atmosphere of purity and sweetness
about her as she now lay sleeping. Beautiful she
was not. Indeed, she was not even what might be
called pretty ; but now that she slept the demon
within her slept also. What was native in her
showed in her countenance. You witnessed it in
this slumber of madness as you would have beheld
it in her waking hours of sanity. I stood viewing
her and I thought to myself she is a refined lady,
pure, gentle, and good.

CHAPTER VII.

DON LAZAEILLO LEAVES TJS.

I WENT out, closing the door behind me, and
called to Butler through the skylight to send the
negro boy to me. The lad arrived, and I bade him
prepare a tray of refreshments for Miss Noble.

" How does the poor lady do, sir ? " said Trapp,
who sat in a chair looking on while I got upon the
table and called.

" She is sound asleep," said I. " So much the
better. You can go forward and get your supper.
I'll keep a look-out here for the present."

He went away, and presently the boy Tom ar-
rived with the tray, on which he had heaped some
cold ham, fruit, jelly from a bottle, and so forth.
I poured some wine into a tumbler, and softly en-
tering the lady's berth placed the tray beside her
on the deck, where, should the schooner begin to
frisk, it would slide without capsizing. I supposed
that all this while Don Lazarillo was in his own

186 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

cabin gnawing, as liis trick was, upon his finger-
ends while he reflected upon the proposals he was
presently to submit. My thoughts went from him
to his dead friend, and I stepped to the berth where
the body lay to look at it.

On opening the door I beheld Don Lazarillo on
his knees at the side of the bunk in which reposed
the body of Don Christoval. His hands were
clasped, his eyes were upturned, and, though his
accents were inaudible outside the door, he prayed
with so much fervor as to be for some moments
insensible of my presence. Then bringing his flash-
ing eyes from the upper deck he directed them at
me, made the sign of the cross upon his breast, rose
to his feet, made the sign of the cross upon the face
of the dead body, on whose breast he had laid a
crucifix, and then looked at me.

I went to the side of the bunk and stood for a
few moments gazing at the pale, still, serene, most
handsome face of the dead.

" When ees he to bury ? " said Don Lazarillo.

"To-night," said I.

" He is Catolique," he exclaimed.

" "We shall have to cast him into the sea without
ceremony, I fear," said I, "unless you will say
some prayers over him."

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US, 18Y

He seemed to understand me, for lie nodded
eagerly, and then, as if to an afterthought, made me
a very low, humble bow of thanks. Pointing to
my fingers, then to the chain of my watch, and then
to the body of the Spaniard, I said, " Will you see
to his property ? "

He pulled open a drawer and motioned me to
observe some objects wrapped in a silk pocket-
handkerchief. On this I looked again at the body,
and now saw that the one or two rings and other
jewelry which Don Christoval had worn were re-
moved. I walked out of the berth, leaving Don
Lazarillo to proceed with his prayers, earnestly
hoping, however, that he would be ready with his
proposals by six o'clock, and that they would be
practicable and consistent with my own wishes ;
because if he made no sign I should be at a loss,
since it was certain that the crew would not suffer
me to execute my threat to carry him to England
while they remained on board ; and how to deal
with them was a problem I should not very well be
able to solve until I had dealt with him.

I told Tom to procure me a cup of chocolate
from Mariana. I then took a cigar from a locker
in which were many boxes of cigars, and, seating
myself in an arm-chair, smoked and ruminated on

188 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

the tragic incidents of the day. Shortly before six
I peeped into Miss Noble's room. She still slept
soundly, exactly in the posture in which I had left
her. This I did not think wonderful, since, for all
I knew, she might not have slept a wink while she
had been aboard the schooner, and nature, utterly ex-
hausted, had claimed at last the heavy arrears owing
to her. I listened : her breathing was perfectly
placid ; her bosom rose and fell gently and regu-
larly. I touched her hand and found it warm. The
refreshments were upon the deck untouched, as I
had placed them.

As I closed the door upon the sleeping girl,
Don Lazarillo emerged from the cabin in which
his friend's remains lay. There Avas a scowl upon
his face that darkened his cheeks like a deeper dye
of complexion. I watched him out of the corners
of my eyes, saying to myself, " This man is a
Spaniard ; I have used strong words to him ; he
would think nothing of serving me as Miss !Noble
served his friend." He drew a paper cigar from
a pocket case, lighted it, and sat down, pointing
to the little clock in the skylight as he did so, as
though he would say, " You see I am punctual,"
And, in truth, it was exactly six o'clock.

He broke the silence by making me understand

BO^ LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 189

that he wished for Mariana. The sailors were as-
sembled at the skylight gazing down impatiently,
and I bade one of them tell the cook to lay aft, and
for Butler and two others to join us below.

" But come quietly," said I, " and make no noise
when you're here, for Miss Noble is asleep. One of
you must remain on deck to keep a look-out."

This fell to George South, and Andrew Trapp
was at the helm. Butler, Scott, and Tubb came be-
low, and they were hastily followed by Mariana.
The conversation (as translated by the cook, though
it is needless, perhaps, to say that my version is
somewhat more intelligible than the original as it
appeared in Mariana's speech) proceeded thus :

" Well, Don Lazarillo," said I, " you have had
plenty of time to consider. Wliat now do you wish
to say ? "

" La Casandra is my property," he replied ; " she
is owned by me, and I placed her at the disposal of
Don Christoval del Padron. You talk of carrying
her to England. I do not wish that she should go
to England."

" It is my business to restore the young lady to
her friends," said I ; " and since this schooner carried
her off from them, most assuredly she will have to
carry her back to them."

190 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" But what is to become of my schooner when
you have her in England ? "

" I do not know, and I do not care," said I.
" Stop ! 1 will tell you this : I shall hand her over
to the shipping authorities at the port at which we
arrive. I will name you as her owner. You can
claim her, if you will, but I shall be compelled to
tell the story of this adventure, and to explain the
part you took in it."

" What's all this got to do with paying of us ? "
growled Butler.

Don Lazarillo sat scowling at me.

" You are quite at liberty," I continued, " to re-
main on board your own schooner ; but in that case
you return with us to England, where certainly my
immediate duty will be to inform against you."

He snarled a malediction.

" What about our money ? Ask him that," cried
Scott to Mariana.

" I will send you and the lady," said Don Laza-
rillo, " to the first passing ship that is proceeding to
England, and these sailors will continue the voyage
with me to Cuba."

" Wlio's going to navigate the vessel ? " said Tubb.

" A i^assing ship will help us to a lieutenant,"
answered Don Lazarillo.

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 191

" "Where's the passing ship to come from ? "
sneered Butler. " "WTio's a-going to wait for her ?
And d'ye think us men 'ud be content to mess about
in this blooming schooner, may be for weeks, not
knowing w^here we are and not knowing how to
head ? Ask the gent who's a-going to pay us, cook ?
That's what we're assembled for to hear."

" Besides," said I, " I should not dream of trans-
ferring Miss Koble to another vessel in her present
condition."

I spied Don Lazarillo and Mariana exchanging a
look. Indeed, I already more than suspected that
these proposals of the Spaniards so far were no
more than a " try on," to use a cant term ; that he
held another card in his hand ready to play should
he be forced to do so, but that, meanwhile, his busi-
ness was to make the best terms he could for him-
self. This conjecture was confirmed by the next
speech of his that Mariana translated :

" Then what remains but for me to be trans-
shipped to a passing vessel — Mariana and me ? "

" That is reasonable. That shall be done," said
I. " It is what I myself should have proposed."

" Contento ! " said Don Lazarillo, and was silent.

" Wliat about our money ? " said Butler.

The Spaniard looked round him on Mariana ren-

192 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

dering tins, tlien said, " I will give drafts upon my
bank at Madrid."

Butler, who was clearly the sea lawyer of this
little community, fastening his eyes upon the rings
on Don Lazarillo's fingers, shook his head with a
contemptuous snort of laughter, " No, no," cried
he, " I know what drafts be. A draft's a check,
and a check's a bit of paper as may be made not
worth the ink it's wrote upon with by the party
withdrawing of his money from the bank. No,
no," he continued, shaking his head somewhat sav-
agely at Don Lazarillo, " we want money, not paper,
and if ye can't pay us in money, then ye've got to
settle with us in what is next best to it." And here
he looked significantly at the Don's rings again.

" You may tell Don Lazarillo," said I to Mari-
ana, " that we shall not be satisfied with his drafts,
nor with anything short of the cash he may have
about him ; and what he may lack in cash he must
make good in jewelry, of which he and his dead
friend have plenty between them."

When this was interpreted, an expression like
a spasm passed over Don Lazarillo's face. He re-
flected, then, with a passionate gesture, whipped out
a pocket-book, from which he abstracted a handsome
gold pencil-case, and all very passionately, with

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 193

knitted brows and muttering lips, he entered certain
figures, then shrieked rather than pronounced the
amount to the cook, naming it in Spanish currency.
Mariana nodded. Don Lazarillo now addressed him
with excitement, then, springing to his feet, he en-
tered Don Christoval's room, from which, in a few
minutes, he returned bearing with him a bag of yel-
low leather, and the silk pocket-handkerchief which,
as he had given me to understand, contained his de-
ceased friend's jewelry. He opened the bag with
trembling fingers, and then, with glowing eyes, he
capsized the contents on to the table. This con-
sisted of English sovereigns — two or three hundred,
I should have imagined.

" Count," shrieked the Spaniard, " and divide."
I counted, and made the sum exactly a hundred
and fifty pounds.

"Divide," yelled Don Lazarillo, and he added
some terms in Spanish which Mariana did not think
proper to interpret. The cook's eyes gleamed like
the blade of a new poniard as he looked at the
money. I told thirty pounds for each man ; for
this, it seems, was the wages agreed upon for the
run. Don Lazarillo then thrust the little parcel of
jewelry which had belonged to his friend across

to me.

13

194 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" Dat veel pay you, I hope, Capitan Portlack,"
he exclaimed, hooking his thumbs in the arms of
his waistcoat, and leaning back with an assumption
of haughtiness and contempt, which fitted him as ill
as the clothes of Don Christoval would.

I opened the handkerchief, and found a hand-
some gold watch and chain and a very fine diamond
ring. I gave Don Lazarillo a nod, and without
speech put these articles into my pockets. The
value of this jewelry to purchase it would prob-
ably have amounted to three or four times the sum
I was to receive ; but then I estimated the things at
their selling price, which probably might not reach
to fifty guineas, so that in pocketing them I was
taking no more than was my due.

" You are now all satisfied, I hope," exclaimed
Don Lazarillo, through Mariana. Yes, we were
all satisfied. " And you put Mariana and me and
my effects on board the first passing ship that will
receive us ? "

" Yes," said I.

"But suppose that she is sailing to Australia
or to India ? "

" I shall not be able to help that," said I. " You
may stay in this schooner if you please, but Miss
Noble must be conveyed home."

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. I95

He rose from his seat frowning, viciously bit off
the end of a. cigar, lighted it, and went on deck, fol-
lowed bv the cook,

" Well, your minds are easy now, I hope, my
lads ? " said I, rising.

" AYe're obliged to ye, Mr. Portlack," answered
Butler. "You've managed first-rate for us. And
now, d'ye know, sir, while I've been sitting at this
table an idea's come into my head."

"What is that idea?"

" It consarns our leaving the schooner, sir."

" Let me hear it."

" There's that big boat amidships," said he.
"We shipped at Cadiz, and it was known at Cadiz
that this here Casandra sailed from that port on
such and such a day. Now my idea is : suppose
you run in for the Spanish land until you've got
Cadiz within, say, half-a-day's sail. Us men will
then launch the cutter and start away for the port,
you giving us its bearings. We must turn to and
invent a yarn and represent this schooner as having
foundered, the rest of the people who got away in
the small boat being lost sight of by us. There are
plenty of vessels at Cadiz, and they're always in
want of hands. We can ship as smartly as we
choose, get away, and then there'll be an end."

196 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

I reflected, and said, " I think your sclieme ex-
cellent, and Cadiz, though still somewhat south, is,
in my opinion, as good as any other port. Only,
when you are gone and the two Spaniards trans-
shipped, I shall be alone in this schooner."

" There'll be Tom, sir," said Tubb.

I smiled.

" If you're to return to England, Mr. Portlack,"
said Butler, pronouncing his words with great
emphasis, " in this here schooner, and we're to
leave you, which must be, for ne'er a man of us
must dream of going home for a long spell to come
arter such a job as this, then what I say is, there's
no help for it. Alone ye'll have to be until such
times as a passing vessel 'uU loan ye a man or two
to help you home."

"Your scheme requires reflection," said I.
" Give me time to think over it. And now, since
you're below, you may as well turn to and get that
body yonder ready for the last toss. We'll drop it
over the side at eight bells."

I walked to Miss Noble's cabin and looked in.
She was still asleep, preserving absolutely her for-
mer posture. I beckoned to Butler, who was at
that instant stepping from Don Christoval's berth.
He approached, and I said, " See there," pointing

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 197

to the ladj. " Slie has been sleeping like that
pretty nearly ever since we left the berth after
searching it."

" Is she sleeping ? " said he.

" Yes," said I, " but there is something unnat-
ural in such slumber as this. She has not stirred a
finger for some hours."

" She seems breathing all right, and appears
comfortable enough, sir," said he, after silently sur-
veying her.

" She does not look comfortable. I wish to see
her in her bunk. Let us gently lift her into it. If
she wakens she may prove to have her mind. Ob
serve her face ; there is no madness in that placid
expression."

"We were both strong men, and, bending over
her we grasped, swdftly raised, and laid her at her
length in the bunk. She never moved. It was
indeed like lifting a statue ; just as we placed her
60 did she continue to lie, breathing quietly with
an expression upon her lips that was ahnost a
smile.

" "Well," hoarsely whispered Butler, " blowed if
I could ha' believed in such a thing had I been told
it. She may be a-dying."

" I hope not," said I ; " one would wish to right

198 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

the enormous wrong that lias deen done her before
she dies."

We stood in the doorway a few minutes looking
at her, talking in whispers of the assassination of
the Spaniard, and of other matters growing out of
that tragic subject, such as the part that Don Laza-
rillo was playing in tliis extraordinary enterprise,
the probability of the girl having lost her reason for
life, and so forth, during which the young lady lay
as motionless as though she rested in her coffin.
Butler then left the cabin to obtain materials for
stitching up the body in, and I went on deck.

We buried the remains of Don Christoval at
eight bells that evening, that is, at eight o'clock.
It was a fine moonless evening, with so much star-
lidit in the heavens that the twilight seemed to still
dwell in the atmosphere when the afterglow had
lono; ago died out. There was a pleasant breeze,
and a sullen, steady sweep of swell, over which the
schooner, almost denuded of her canvas — for our
plans were not yet formed — rode with the regu-
larity of the tick of a clock.

Ever since sunset Don Lazarillo had hung about
in the waist, conversing with Mariana in Spanish
in subdued accents, yet with an energy that again
and again ran a hiss through his utterance. The

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. J 99

body, with a couple of cannon shot attached to its
feet, was handed on deck by three of the men ; it
was then placed upon a piece of the main-hatch
cover, and hoisted to the lee-rail, the foot of the
cover resting on the rail, while the head was sup-
ported by Butler and South. The two Spaniards,
who had fallen dmnb when the body was brought
on deck, repeatedly crossed themselves, holding
their hats in their hands, while the men were
manoeuvring at the sides with Don Christoval's re-
mains.

" Are you ready ? " said I.

" All ready, sir,'* answered Butler.

" Pull off your caps, lads," said I, and, bare-
headed, I stepped up to Don Lazarillo and begged
him to recite tlie prayers he desired to pronounce
over his friend's ashes.

He responded with a bow, which, for the mo-
ment, affected me by its mixture of courtesy and
grief, and then, with Mariana stalking at his heels,
approached the body. They went down upon their
knees, and Don Lazarillo prayed loudly, the cook
occasionally striking in with an ejaculation. I
gazed with respect, and oven reverence, at this
strange picture. No matter what a man's faith may
be, no matter what his color may be, no matter how

200 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

wild and grotesque tlie accents in which he vents
himself, never can I behold him praying to the
Being in whom he believes, jea, even though he be
a John Chinaman prostrate to the flat of his fore-
head upon the floor of his joss-house, without being
strangely moved and melted into feelings and sen-
sations in which one should seem to find but little
affinity with the rough life of the ocean. The
Spaniard's prayers were not mine, his religion was
not mine; but what signifies that^ thought I, as I
stood listening and gazing ; every man sets his
watch in the dark, and it is but reasonable that
every man should think his own time right.

The night wind, damp with dew, hummed in the
rigging ; the dark water broke from the gentle
thrust of the stem in sobs, while Don Lazarillo
prayed, and while Mariana ejaculated. As my eye
went to the pale glimmering shape of the canvas I
heard again the sounds of the sweet tenor voice as
it had quietly rung through the open skylight that
morning. I heard again the harp-like notes of the
delicately-fingered guitar, I beheld again those vis-
ions which that clear, melodious voice had evoked,
those summer aromatic scenes which Don Christo-
val's songs had painted upon the vision of my
mind. The Spaniards rose from their knees. Don

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 201

Lazarillo made the sign of the cross upon the body,
then pronounced some word in Spanish, with a sob
in his tone.

" Let it go, men," said I.

They tilted the hatch, and the pale shape flashed
over the side.

" Is Butler forward there ? " I called out as I
was pacing the quarter-deck half an hour later.

" Here he is, sir," responded Butler's voice.

" Step aft," said I. He arrived. " Butler, I've
been thinking over your scheme. For the last half-
hour I've been thinking of nothing else. If you
men go away in the boat, will the negro boy Tom
be willing to remain with me ? "

" Yes, sir."

" How do you know."

" I put the question to him and he said he would
be willing."

" Then," I exclaimed, " I consent. I agree with
you that, if you are to leave me, I must be alone
until I can get help. I might indeed transship you,
feign to tlie master of the vessel we should speak
that you were mutineers — a character you would all
have to support — and ask him to give me two or
three men in exchange for my five. That I might
do ; but the business would consist of a lie, and I

202 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

hate lies. We should have to act a part : the fire
of jou would have to invent a yarn, and carefully
stick to it, while you were aboard the vessel that
received you. . . . Xo ! your plan is the most
straightforward, and the least troublesome. The
risk is mine, and a heavy risk it is — to be left in a
big vessel with one hand only, and that hand a boy,
and a mad lady below, who will requii-e watching,
and who may attempt our lives when she awakes.
Eat I see no other M'ay out of the difficulty."

" Nor I, sir," he answered. " We don't like the
notion of leaving ye alone ; but then, you insist
upon carrying this here schooner to England, and
to England we don't mean to go," said he, slap-
ping his leg.

" Say no more. We'll hold that matter settled.
Only, before you leave, the two Spaniards must
have left ; otherwise they'll be cutting Tom's and
my throat, taking their chance, as I shall have to
take my chance, of being fallen in with and suc-
cored. The Don doesn't like the notion of losing
his schooner ; but lose her he must, for he'll never
dare to lay claim to her."

" I should think not ! " said he. " Well, sir, then
I'll tell my mates it's settled. What about leaving
the vessel under this small canvas ? "

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 203

" Oh," I answered, "sail can now be made, and
I'll shape a course for Cadiz. As we approach the
land, we stand to fall in with some trader, who'll
put the two Spaniards ashore on their native soil."

I was in charge of the deck, and it was for me,
therefore, to give the necessary orders for sail to be
made. The sailors sprang about with marvelous
agility. The influence of the money they had re-
ceived operated far more strongly in them than the
influence of the funeral they had witnessed, and I
believe that nothing had restrained them from sing-
ing, dancing, making a night of it, in short — for the
fellows were never without plenty of a cheap sort
of claret that had been economically laid in for
their consumption — nothing, I say, had hindered
them from celebrating their payment of thirty
pounds a man by a forecastle carousal, but the feel-
ing that some trifling respect was due to the mem-
ory of the dead and to the affliction of Don Laza-
rillo. Sail was heaped upon the schooner, iler
twin spires floated through the liquid dusk that was
radiant with large trembling stars, and a sheen
melted off the edges of the canvas into the gloom,
as though the whole fabric were some tall island
of ice.

Don Lazarillo sat under the skylight ; he lay

204 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

back in liis chair with his legs crossed, his hands
clasped upon his waistcoat, and a long cigar forking
out of his mouth. His eyes of fire were fixed upon
one of the cabin lamps, and I saw them gleaming,
through the clouds of smoke he expelled, like tlie
lanterns of a light-sliip on a thick night. His coun-
tenance wore an expression of desperate dejection.
Some distance away from him sat the man South,
whose turn it was to watch beside Miss N^oble's
cabin door. This duty I conceived might, for the
next two hours, at all events, be intrusted to the ne-
gro boy. He was somewhere forward. I called to
him, and he came along to me out of the gloom ;
his black face so blending with the obscurity that
the white jacket and canvas breeches he wore made
him resemble a body without a head,

" You are satisfied to remain with me, Tom,"
said I, " when the sailors leave me ? "

" Yes, massa."

" You are a good boy, and a plucky boy. We
shall not be long without help, I expect. I will
take care that you are rewarded," The ex])anse of
his teeth by a sudden grin was like a streak of dim
light upon the darkness. " Go below into the
cabin," said I, " and relieve South. Let him go
forward. You know what you have to watch ? "

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 205

" Dah ladj^'s door, sah."

He descended, and up came South, who was im-
mediately followed by Don Lazarillo. The Span-
iard, temporarily blinded by the brilliance he had
emerged from, stood in the companion-way staring
around ; then perceiving me, he crossed the deck
and with great haste and agitation addressed me in
Spanish.

" No compreny, no compreny, Don Lazarillo ! "
I exclaimed, and sang out for Mariana to be sent
aft. The fellow promptly arrived, and upon him
the Don instantly discharged a whole torrent of
words.

" What is wrong ? " said I.

The cook answered that Don Lazarillo wished
Miss Noble's cabin to be watched by a seaman.
Tom was a boy. Should Miss Noble dash out of
her cabin armed with a knife, what would Tom be
able to do ?

" Tell Don Lazarillo," said I, " that Miss Noble
is slumbering in what seems to be a trance."

The Don violently shook his head. His friend
had been assassinated : he himself might be the
next victim. By the bones of St. Thomas, was he
to be stuck in the back like a pig, or to have his
head half severed from his body in his sleep ? He

206 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

would ask Captain Portlack to do him a great favor
— to exchange quarters with him. He, Don Laza-
rillo, with Seiior Portlack's courteous permission,
would sleep under the main hatch during the re-
mainder of his stay on board La Casandra.

I promptly assented, and that the unhappy Span-
iard should meanwhile enjoy some little ease of
mind, I called to South and bade him resume his
look-out in the cabin. I now hoped to be able to
get the truth about this M^ild and tragic expedition
out of Don Lazarillo, and, with as much tact as I
was master of, sought through Mariana to direct
the conversation that way. But I was disappointed.
Don Lazarillo returned evasive answers, and then,
suddenly complaining of the cold, made me a bow
and withdrew to the cabin with Mariana, who, I
presently ascertained, immediately went to work
to prepare my quarters for the reception of the
Don.

After ten o'clock I saw no more of the Span-
iard. I had heard some sound of hammering, but
knew not what it signified until South, coming up
out of the cabin after having been relieved by one
of the seamen, informed me that it had been caused
by Mariana nailing up the bulk-head door that led
to the sleeping quarters I had occupied. " The Don

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 207

don't mean that the lady shall get at him, sir," said
the man, with a short laugh.

I stepped into the cabin to mix myself a glass of
grog, dim the lamps, and take a look round.

" Has all been still within ? " said I to William
Scott, who was to be sentry down here till mid-
night.

He replied that he had not heard a sound. On
this I opened the door of the lady's room, and bade
Scott hold it open that I might see by the sheen of
the cabin lamps. There lay the girl as she had
been lying for hours, always breathing with the
same regularity, her posture exactly the same. I
viewed her attentively, but could not detect that
she had moved her head or a limb by as much as
the breadth of a finger-nail.

I marveled much as I returned on deck. "Was
this sleep the forerunner of death ? Was life ebb-
ing away as she thus rested ? If not, then how long
would this slumber last ? Yet, thought I, it is. best
as it is ; better that her senses should be thus locked
up, than that with eyes brilliant with madness she
should be ceaselessly pacing the floor of her room,
or with insane cunning watching for an opportunity
to steal forth.

I slept during my watch below — that is, from

208 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

twelve to four — in the cabin that had been Don
Lazarillo's, and Captain Dopping's before him, to
which new quarters I found that Mariana had
brought the charts, chronometer, nautical instru-
ments, and so forth. I slept soundly. Butler
aroused me : all had been well. The breeze had
freshened, he said ; at three o'clock a large line-of-
battle ship had passed within musket-shot ; saving
this, there was nothing to report. I looked in upon
the girl on my way to the deck and found her, as I
was now expecting to find her, in a deep and death-
like sleep.

When the dawn broke I anxiously scanned the
sea line in search of a ship. Every hour of sailing
of this sort was sw^eeping us closer into the Spanish
coast ; and as I had no intention whatever of re-
linquishing my five seamen until I had got rid of
the two Spaniards, my present keen anxiety was to
heave something into view that would receive them
and carry them off. The rising sun flashed a bright
and joyous morning into the wide scene of heaven
and ocean. The horizon lay clear as the rim of a
lens ; a sweep of delicate blue to either hand of the
glorious wake of the soaring luminary, with the sky
sloping down to it in a dim azure, richly mottled in
the west with clouds ; but there was nothing to be

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 209

seen. On this I resolved to shorten sail and to
head somewhat more to the southward, where we
stood a chance of falling in with the sort of craft
we desired to signal. All hands were on deck. I
briefly explained my motive, and canvas was forth-
with reduced, diminishing the speed of the schooner
to within about four miles an hour.

While the men were busy with the ropes, Don
Lazarillo's dark and bearded face rose through the
main hatch. His eyes swept the horizon, as mine
had, and then they settled upon me with a frown
of disappointment. His comj)lexion was unwhole-
some, as from a long night of sleeplessness and
anxiety, not to mention the several passions which
would contend within him when he reflected on the
death of his friend, the complete and tragic fail-
ure of the expedition, the prospective loss of his
schooner, and the certain loss of the money — doubt-
less a large sum — with which I w^as quite sure he
had aided Don Christoval in the execution of his
scheme to I'un away with an English heiress. He
gave me a sullen boM', pointed with a shrug to the
bare ocean, addressed Mariana, whose eyes watched
him from the galley-door, and descended into the
cabin ; but as I happened to be standing close to

the companion-way, I was able to observe that he
14

210 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

paused, before entering the interior, to make sure
that somebody was watching Miss Noble's berth.

He had finished liis breakfast by the time I was
ready for mine, and as I took my seat he got up
and went on deck in silence, casting a single savage
glance at the door of the lady's cabin as he walked
to the companion-steps. I looked in upon her
when I had breakfasted ; there was no change in
her attitude : her trance, if trance it were, was as
profound as ever it had been.

However, as it turned out, Don Lazarillo was
not to pass another night aboard La Casandra.
And, indeed, seeing what waters we were now navi-
gating, it would have been extraordinary, a thing
beyond all average seafaring experience, had hour
after hour rolled by without bringing us a sight of
a sail. I was eating some dinner, at half-past one
o'clock, in the cabin, when Butler put his head into
the skylight and called down :

"Mr. Portlack, there's a small vessel standing
almost direct for us out of the south'ard and
west'ard — bound in, apparently, for the Portugal
coast. Shall we signal her ? "

" Ay, certainly," cried I. " Heave the schooner
to, and run the ensign aloft. I'll be with you pres-
ently."

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 211

In about ten minutes' time I finished my dinner,
swallowed a bumper of the noble Burgundy which
had been stowed aft for the consumption of the
Spaniards, lighted one of the fine Havana cigars, of
which there was a locker half full, and, exchanging
a sentence with Trapp, whose turn it was to keep
watch on Miss ISToble, went on deck. Not above
three miles distant, and heading, as it seemed, direct-
ly for us, was a square-rigged vessel, a little brig, as
she subsequently proved. Her canvas glanced like
satin in the sun as she rolled. She was coming
leisurely along under all plain sail. There was a
color blowing at her main royalmast head, where
alone it would have been visible to us, and on see-
ing it through a glass I made it out to be the Portu-
guese ensign.

Don Lazarillo was on deck, swathed in his long
Spanish cloak, and wearing on his head a large An-
dalusian hat. He looked like a bandit in an opera.
Mariana, whose head was adorned by a long blue
cap, shaped like the night-caps men used to sleep in
when I was a boy, watched the approaching craft
from his favorite skulking-hole, the caboose door.

" She veel do, I hope ! " cried Don Lazarillo, on
catching sight of me, motioning toward the brig
with a theatrical gesture.

212 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" I hope so, indeed," said I, earnestly. " But,"
cried 1, happening to direct my eyes at our gaff
end, where flew not the English but the Spanish
colors, " what have you got hoisted there, Butler ? "

" The only ensign aboard, sir," he answered.

" Upon my word ! Yet I might have supposed
80. La Casandra is a Spaniard, to all intents and
purposes. So much the better," I added, as I sent
another glance at the flag we were flying. " The
Portuguese may be more willing to obhge the
people of that flag's nationality than those whose
rag is the red, white, and blue."

The schooner had been hove to, thrown head to
wind, her square canvas being furled, and nothing
was to be heard but the slopping sound of waters
alongside and the straining noises of the fabric as
she leaned to the swell, while silently and eagerly
we kept our eyes fastened upon the coming Portu-
guese brig. She drew close to windward, put her
helm down, backed her maintop-sail yard, and lay
within hailing distance — a prettier model than ever
I should have thought to see flying her colors, clean
in rig, and her canvas fitting her well. The white
water raced fountain-like from her bows as she
courtesied, ripples of light ran like thrills through
her black, wet sides, and there was a frequent

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 213

leap of white fire from the brass and glass along
her quarter-deck.

A tall, gaunt man, whose features were just
distinguishable, got upon the rail, and, holding on
by a back-stay, pulled off his red cap and hailed us
in Portuguese. Don Lazarillo looked round to
observe if anybody meant to answer him ; then
exclaiming, " I understand ; I speak his language,"
he shouted an answer — but an answer that seemed
a fathom long ; in fact, there was room in Don
Lazarillo's response to the Portuguese skipper's
hail for the whole story of our adventure. Mariana
came and stood alongside the Don. Many cries
were exchanged ; the gestures were frequent and
often frantic. Presently the Portuguese skipper
dropped on to his deck, and Don Lazarillo bade
Mariana inform me that the man meant to come
aboard. In a few minutes the Portuguese brig
lowered a boat ; her gaunt skipper entered it,
accompanied by a couple of men, and pulled the
little craft alongside of us.

I had never beheld so strange a figure as that
Portuguese skipper. His face was little more than
that of a skull, the flesh of which resembled the
skin of an old drum where it is darkened by the
beating of the sticks ; it lay in ridges, as though

214 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

badly pasted on, and these ridges looked to have
become iron-hard through exposure to the weather.
His eyes were large, intensely black, and horribly
deep sunk, and glowed with what might well have
been the fire of fever. Don Lazarillo pronounced
some words, haughtily motioning to me ; on which
the Portuguese skipper gave me such a bow as a
skeleton would make, and I pulled off my hat.
Then the Spaniard addressed Mariana, who, accost-
ing me in his extraordinary English, said that Don
Lazarillo desired to know if it should be left to
him to conduct this business of their quitting the
schooner. I answered, " Certainly." I had no wish
to interfere at all ; nor could I be of the slightest
use to them, not knowing a syllable of their tongues.
On this Don Lazarillo took the Portuguese skipper
into the cabin, and with them went the cook.

After a few moments I heard the sound of a
cork drawn ; this was followed by much animated
conversation ; but I did not choose to show myself
at the skylight under which they w^ere seated, and
their accents reached my ear faintly. I said to
Butler, with a smile :

" I hope the Don isn't conspiring with the
Portusral man to seize the schooner."

" Lord bless ye, Mr. Portlack," he answered

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 215

witli a grin. " How many of tlie likes of them
chaps in the boat over the side down there would
be needed for such a job as that ? "

And a grimy, wretched brace of men they
were; yellow as mustard, and dark for want of
soap, clad in costumes of rags, the lower extremities
of which were kept together by being thrust into
half- Wellington boots, bronzed with brine.

" Where are you from ? " I shouted.

They were squatting in the bottom of the boat
like monkeys, and their manner of looking upward
was exactly that of monkeys — swift, their gleaming
eyes restless, and a queer puckering of their leather
lips that seemed a grin. They understood me, and
one answered, " Bahia."

" Where are you bound to ? "

" Lisbon."

I tried them with one or two more questions,
but to no purpose. After the lapse of some twenty
minutes Mariana came out of the cabin, and said
that Don Lazarillo begged I would be so good as
to send two seamen below to convey his effects
into the boat.

" Certainly," I answered, and ordered a couple
of men to attend upon the Spaniard. Guessing
that the Don's effects would be comparatively

216 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

trifling, I could not imagine wliy he required the
services of two men in addition to the cook's help ;
until, after a little, first one sailor made his
appearance with his arms full of boxes of cigars,
then the second sailor arrived with a case of wine,
then Mariana came on deck with bags and valises
belonging to the two Dons. These articles were
lianded into the boat, and the seamen and the cook
returned for more. It was clearlj Don Lazarillo's
intention to carry off as much as the Portuguese
boat would hold, and by and by she was lying
alongside deep with wine, cigars, a chest, as I
supposed, of the silver plate, and a variety of other
portable articles.

Don Lazarillo then came up with the Portuguese
captain. They went to the side and looked over
at the boat, and the Portuguese captain hailed the
men in her, and some unintelligible talk followed.
The boat was then drawn under the gangway by
the two fellows, and without a syllable, but with
one deadly glance of malice at me, Don Lazarillo
entered her. Mariana, throwing a bundle into her,
followed. The Portuguese skipper then sprang,
and the boat shoved off.

Fortunately for her inmates, the surface of the
sea flashed and feathered in ripples only, for the

DON LAZARILLO LEAVES US. 217

spite or avarice of the Spaniard liad so loaded
the boat that it needed but a very little weight in
the movement of the water to swamp and founder
her out of hand.

When her two oars had impelled her a pistol-
shot distant from us, Don Lazarillo stood up and
proceeded to harangue me in Spanish, with both
arms raised and both fists cKnched. He rapidly
worked liimself into a white heat of passion ; his
voice rose into a penetrating shriek. That he was
heaping upon my head every malediction which
the language of his country, rich in grotesquely in-
jurious terms, could supply him with, I did not
doubt. I picked up a telescope and looked at his
face through it, which cool, provoking act so height-
ened the madness of his wrath that he fell to sway-
ing and toppling about after the manner of a man
delirious with drink ; wliereupon the Portuguese
captain, wlio had sat stolidly looking up at him,
to save his own and the lives of the others — for the
boat dangerously swayed to the Don's ecstatic gest-
ures— struck him behind in the bend of his legs
with the sharp of his hand, and Don Lazarillo van-
ished in a twinkling in the bottom of the boat.
A roar of laughter went up from our men.

" Trim sail, lads, and then heap it on her," I

218 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

called out ; and, even as the boat lay alongside the
brig, with the people in her handing up Don Laza-
rillo's little cargo, the Casandra, yielding to the im-
pulse of her broad and lofty cloths, was ripping
through it to the southward and eastward, the brine
spitting at her stem, and the shapely little Portu-
guese brig veering astern into a Lilliputian toy, her
white canvas resembling a hovering butterfly in the
confused, misty, and broken fires of the sun's reflec-
tion upon the ocean in the south-west.

CHAPTEE YIIL

IDA NOBLE.

" OuK turn next, sir," exclaimed Butler, coming
away from the rail, where he had been standing for
a minute looking at the brig under his hand.

"Yes, I shall be sorry to lose you," said I;
"but what must be, must be, and you've made up
your minds."

" Ay, sir. It is right and proper, indeed, that
you should carry the poor lady home ; and gladly
would we help ye if we durst. But after what's

happened " He violently shook his head.

" How far d'ye reckon the coast of Cadiz to be dis-
tant, sir ? "

" Call it four days at this rate of sailing," said
I. Then, looking at him, I continued : " I wish you
men would change your minds, and let me set you
ashore north of Ushant."

I was proceeding to explain my reason, but he
arrested me by an emphatic, " No, sir. Let it be

220 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

Cadiz, if you please. The fiirtlier away tlie better.
All us men have friends at Cadiz, and there are
other reasons for our deciding upon that port."

I went below to see what Don Lazarillo had left
behind him. The negro lad sat in a chair keejjing
that watch in the cabin which we continued to
maintain spite of the girl's wonderful death-like
sleep. It would have been easy, indeed, to have
padlocked or in other ways secured the door ; but
then, if the door had been thus secured, our vigi-
lance would certainly have been relaxed : in which
case there was the chance of the cabin being empty
at the moment when her consciousness returned,
and, consequently, nobody at hand to arrest any
dangerous behavior in her.

I found that Don Lazarillo had emptied the
locker of its cigars. The negro boy told me that
the Spaniard had also carried away the wine which
had lain stowed in the lazaretto. But there was
nothing to grieve me in this news ; there were
pipes and tobacco on board, and a plentiful stock
of cheap wine for the use of the sailors. I entered
Don Christoval's cabin and found nothing but the
bedding left. The clothes of the dead man had
been packed and conveyed to the brig. There was
a chest of drawers, and in a corner stood a small

IDA NOBLE. 221

table with drawers ; these I ransacked, with a faint
fancy or hope of meeting with some forgotten let-
ter, some diary or document which Don Lazarillo
had nesclected to take, and which might throw some
fresh light upon this extraordinary expedition.
But every drawer was empty.

I was standing lost in thought, with my eyes
fixed upon the vacant bunk or sleeping-shelf, mus-
ing upon the incidents of the past few days, and
wondering into what sort of issue my hand was to
shape this adventure, when I was startled by an ex-
traordinary cry, scarcely less alarming in its way
than the death-scream that had been uttered by
Don Christoval. It was such a cry as a wounded
savage might deliver. Before I could reach the
door of the berth the negro boy rushed in.

'• Oh, massa," he panted, " dah lady's looking out."

My impression was that he had been stabbed.
" Are you hurt ? " I exclaimed, grasping him by the
arm.

" Is^o, sah ! "

" Wlio shrieked just now ? "

" I did, sah."

I cuffed him over his woolly head to clear him
out of my road, and stepped into the cabin. Miss
Noble, with the handle of the cabin door in her

222 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

grasp, stood looking out witli an expression upon
lier face of sueli utter bewilderment that but for
lier costume and my knowing she was the sole oc-
cupant of her room, I should not have recognized
her. A person watching the motions of a gliding
apparition, Itnowing it to be a ghost, beckon-
ing, stalking, compelling, might very well be sup-
posed to stare as that girl did. Her eyes slowly
rolled over the interior, as though the organ of vis-
ion, stupefied by bewilderment, was scarcely capa-
ble of effort. She was deadly pale, yet, spite of the
withering influence of her astonishment upon her
features, I seemed to find an expression of intelli-
gence in them that most certainly was not to be
witnessed before. She breathed swiftly. One side
of her hair was now entirely unfastened, and the
heavy mass of the dark red tresses lay upon her
shoulder and upon her bosom. I instantly looked at
her idle hand ; it held nothing.

I surveyed her a little, wondering whether she
would speak ; whether reason had been restored to
her ; whether there might not happen at any beat
of the i^ulse a sudden horrible transformation in
her, a new and blacker exhibition of insanity. Her
dark eyes came to mine ; there was an expression of
terror in them. She pressed her hand to her fore-

IDA NOBLE. 223

head, and looked down as though she would sharpen
her sight by averting it for a moment from the ob-
ject at which she gazed, then looked at me again,
pleadingly, eagerly, and fearfully.

" Do not you know where you are, Miss No-
ble ? " said I, in the most careless, matter-of-fact
manner I could put on.

" I am trying to think," she answered.

" Pray give me your hand," said I.

She extended it as a child mig-ht. I led her to
an arm-chair and gently obliged her to sit. A de-
canter half-full of sherry stood in the swing-tray.
I poured a little of the wine into a glass, and pre-
sented it to her ; she took it and drank. Her be-
havior and looks were absolutely rational, clouded
as they were by a bewilderment which her eyes ap-
peared to express as hopeless. She had been fast-
ing for many hours, and I was sure I could not do
better than make her take food. I beckoned to
Tom, who stood staring at the lady from the other
end of the cabin. He approached, though he kept
the table between him and Miss ISToble. Her bewil-
derment visibly deepened as her eyes rested on his
black face. I directed him to obtain the most deli-
cate refreshments which the cabin larder of the
schooner yielded, and to bear a hand.

224 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" You have been long asleep," said I, gently.
" You were unconscious when you were brought
aboard this vessel — for you know now that you are
at sea — and you must not wonder that you are be-
wildered on waking to find yourself in this strange
scene."

" Where am I ? " she asked, in a voice that was
but a little above a whisper, so breathless was she
with continued surprise.

" You are on board a schooner called La Casan-
dra. I am acting as her captain. We are now
making haste to return to England, to restore you to
your home."

" England — home ? " she muttered, looking at
me, then around her, then down at the dressing-
gown she was robed in, then pulling a sleeve of
the gown a little way up the arm and gazing at
the bracelets upon her wrists. " Why am I here ? "
she exclaimed, drawing a breath that sounded like
a sob.

" Will you not wait till you have eaten a trifle ?
Nothing has passed your lips for very many hours.
As strength returns, your memory will brighten,
and I know I shall make you happy by the assur-
ance I am able to give you."

" Why am I here ? " she repeated.

IDA NOBLE. 225

I considered it wise to liiunor her : but to hu-
mor her I must tell the truth.

" You are here," said I, " because two Span-
iards — one of them named Don Christoval del
Padron, and the other styled Don Lazarillo de
Tonnes — went ashore near your father's estate, on
the coast of Cumberland, accompanied by a crew of
armed sailors, and forcibly stole you away from
your home, carrying you in a state of insensibility
to a boat."

She interrupted me at this point by crying out,
** Yes, yes, now I remember, now I remember." She
clasped her hands and half rose, repeating, " Yes,
yes, now I remember," staring past me wildly as
she spoke, as though she addressed some one at the
other end of the cabin ; then burying her face in
her hands she sat in silence, rocking herself in the
throes of a conflict with memory.

I stood looking on, waiting for nature to have

her way with her. The seamen, having got wand

of her awakening, had collected at the skylight and

were looking down ; but fearing that the sight of

them might terrify her, I dispersed the group of

dark and hairy faces with an angry gesture. Tom

arrived with a tray of refreshments. I dispatched

him on deck to inform Butler and the others that
15

226 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

the lady had returned to consciousness ; that her
reason had awakened with her, and that she was
now as sane as any of us, but that they were to
keep quiet and to hold their heads out of view.

Presently the girl looked up ; she was weeping,
but so silently that I did not know she was crying
until I saw her face.

" It has all come back to me," she exclaimed in
a broken voice, and shuddering violently. " Did
you tell me you Avere taking me home ? "

" Yes, Miss Noble, you are going home."

" Will it be long before we arrive home ? "

" Not very long."

"And what has happened to me since I have
been here?" said she, looking again down at the
rich crimson dressing-gown she was habited in.

" You have been in a sort of stupor," I an-
swered, " but you have awakened strong and well ;
or let me say, in a very little while you will be
strong and well. But you must eat, if you please,
and while you eat you shall ask any questions you
like, and I will answer you."

I put the plate beside her, and noticed with
gladness that she eyed it somewhat wistfully. In-
deed, if anybody were ever nearly starved, she was ;
though medical men to whom I have stated her case

IDA NOBLE. 227

have since told me that persons visited with these
extraordinary fits of shimber can live for days, and
even for weeks, without food.

Tom had been careful not to put a knife on the
tray ; but there was a fork, and with it I placed a
thin slice of ham between two white biscuits and
presented this sea-sandwich to her, and she began
to eat. She ate the whole of it, and then I made
her another and gave her a little more sherry, and
now I could observe how excellently this refresh
ment served her as medicine ; for every moment
seemed to diminish something of her bewilderment,
while intelligence brightened in her eyes, and a
very faint bloom from the improved action of her
heart sifted into her complexion

Suddenly, Math a start, and with a wild and ter-
rified look around the cabin, she asked me where the
two Spaniards were. The idea of them, borne on
the current of the thoughts and fancies flowing
through her brain, had, as I might judge, but that
instant entered her consciousness. Now it was not
to be supposed that I could tell her she had with
her own hand slain one of those Spaniards ; and no
purpose, therefore, could be served by informing
her that one of them was dead.

" They have left the vessel," I answered.

228 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" "Will tliey return ? " she cried.

" No, indeed ; I will take care of that. You
need not fear that they will trouble you any more."

Her countenance relaxed its expression of ter-
ror, and her eyes met mine with a soft and touching
look of gratitude in them. She then sighed deeply,
and pressed her hand to her forehead.

" Pray, Miss Noble, tell me how you feel ? "
said I.

" My head swims," she answered. " The motion
of this vessel affects me."

Now that might well have been so, strange as it
may seem. She would suffer from sea-sickness
neither in her trance nor in her madness ; but now
that both were passed, now that her real nature was
re-established in her, she must needs begin to suffer
as she would have suffered from this same sea-sick-
ness at the beginning of the voyage had she been
brought on board in her senses. It seemed to me a
most wholesome, reassuring sign, though I would
not say so, for I desired to preserve her from all
suspicion of the hideous state she had passed
through.

" Suppose," said I, " that you lie down and en-
deavor to obtain some sleep. Wliat you have awak-
ened from was stupor, and there can be no refresh-

IDA NOBLE. 229

ment in stupor. A few hours of wholesome, natu-
ral rest are sure to work wonders."

She rose in silence, but with consent in her eyes.
Observing that her movements were unsteady, I
gently held her arm and directed her steps to her
berth. She got into her bunk, and I paused to in-
quire if there was anything 1 could do for her.

" Kothing," she answered in a low 'voice. " I
am grateful for your kindness. Everything has
come back to me. Oh, yes, I now remember that
dreadful night — that dreadful night ! But you are
not deceiving me ? "

" In what ? "

"You tell me that Don Christoval and his
friend are not in this vessel."

" Rest your poor heart, Madame. I swear to you
as an English seaman that they are out of this ves-
sel, and that you will never be troubled by them
again."

" "Where are they ? " she asked.

" We will talk about them by and by."

She closed her eyes, and I stood beside her a few
minutes, then went out, calling to Tom to come and
keep watch, with a threat to rope's-end him if he
shrieked again should the lady suddenly show her-
self, for that she was now as sane as he or I was.

230 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

I went on deck heartily rejoiced bj this restora-
tion of the poor lady's mind. It cleared me of a
heavy load of anxiety. 'Now I could contemplate
taking charge of the schooner with only Tom to
help me until I could procure further assistance :
this I could think of without half the misgiving
which before worked in me when my mind went to
it. On my showing myself, Butler, who was in
charge, immediately approached me.

" I see the poor lady's woke up at last, sir."

"Yes," said I.

"And Tom says she has her intellect sound
again."

" It is true, and thank God for it," said I.

" Strange, Mr. Portlack," said he, after biting
for a moment or two meditatively on the piece of
tobacco in his cheek, "that the poor lady should
come to just at the time that there Spaniard goes
oft", as one might say. There's a tarm to fit the
likes of such a traverse, but I forgets it."

" A coincidence," said I.

" Well, that'll do, I dessay, though there's another
word a-running in my head. And how do the lady
relish the notion of having stuck the big Span-'
iard ? "

" Now listen to me, Butler," said I, " and repeat

IDA NOBLE. 231

wliat I am about to tell to your mates in the
most powerful voice you can command, and in the
strongest words you can employ. Under no circum-
stances whatever, on no consideration whatever,
must the lady be given to know that she cormn.itted
that act. Tell her of it, and in all probability you
will drive her mad for good and all."

" There's no fear of any of us ever a-telling her
of it," he replied, with a sort of sulky astonishment
working in his face at the energy with which I had
addressed him ; " but she'll have to hear of it some
of these days, won't she, sir ? "

" Not from us," said I, " and therefore what is
going to happen some of these da^'S will be no busi-
ness of ours."

" That's true enough," said he.

" There is another point that may be worth our
consideration. Briefly, the lady has now her senses ;
she has a clear eye, and may very likely prove to
have a keen memory. I will take care that your
names arc not known to her ; and should she ever
come on deck while you remain on board, I would
advise you and your mates to show as little of
yourselves as tlie navigation of the ship will
suffef."

He looked thoughtful, and fell to stroking his

232 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

chin, " Yes, by thunder ! Mr. Portlack, you're
right," he exclaimed. " If she gets to hear our
names, and is able to describe us, why ! Tell ye
what it is, sir : the sooner we five men are off, the
better ; and until we've cleared out, I hope you
won't encourage her to come on deck too often."

Having tasted no food for some hours, I went
below, and dispatched Tom to procure me some sup-
per. Wliile he waited upon me the following con-
versation took place between us :

" You must never at any time, or on any occa-
sion, say, either aboard this schooner or ashore, that
the lady in the cabin yonder killed the Spaniard."

" No, sah."

" If you do, you and I, who are to convey this
lady home, will be charged as accomplices in the
awful crime of bloody murder."

" I'll 1)0 berry car'fu', sir."

" A single hint from you might lead to you and
me being hanged by the neck until we are dead.
On the other hand, if you keep silent, I will take
care that you are rewarded ; and if you have had
enough of the sea, I dare say the friends of the
lady will find you some comfortable berth ashore."

The lad's black face was somewhat complicated
by expression. There was mingled fright and

IDA NOBLE. 233

delight in his wide grin and the stare of his large,
bland, dusky African eyes.

"Mind!" said I.

And here let nie own that my desire that the
murder of the Spaniard should be kept, a profound
secret was largely — indeed almost wholly — a selfish
one. For, first, I never doubted that, if the girl
came to hear of what she had done, the thought of
it working in a brain still weak with recent crazi-
ness would render her incurably mad, and so im-
measurably increase my present anxieties and the
trouble I should be put to to carry her home,
l^ext, I wished the dreadful deed kept secret, since
this singular expedition having caused me trouble
and grief enough already upon the high seas, I was
by no means anxious that darker worries should
grow out of it on my arrival on shore.

I saw nothing of the lady that evening, nor, in-
deed, throughout the night. Two or three times I
knocked upon her door to inquire if she needed
anything, and once only she answered. Her reply
satisfied me that her mind was hers again ; that,
in short, there had been no relapse since I had
left her. However, to provide against all risk, I
arranged that the seamen should keep a look-out in
the cabin as heretofore.

234 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

I had charge of the deck from four till eight.
It blew continually a fine breeze of wind, and hour
after hour the schooner swept through it as though
driven by powerful engines. I guessed, if the ves-
sel maintained her present rate of sailing, that the
men would be enabled to leave me before forty-
eight hours had passed. Daybreak showed us sev-
eral ships on the sea line. They were all of them
small vessels, and standing, with the exception of
one, to the north. The man Scott, who was at the
helm, said that it was a pity his mates could not see
their way to transshipping themselves aboard a
craft, instead of making for Cadiz in the cutter.

" Why don't you stop with me ? " said I.

" 'No, no ! " he exclaimed.

" But listen. Could not we three — you, me, and
the negro boy — carry the schooner into Penzance,
say, where you might go ashore at once, take the
coach for London, and vanish much more entirely
than ever you will by going to Cadiz ? "

" ^o, sir, no ; there's to be no going home with
me. I should be a fool to trust myself in England.
I'm too respectable a man to live in any country
where I'm ' wanted.' "

" Well, then," said I, " Butler's scheme of the
cutter and of Cadiz is the practicable one, and you

IDA NOBLE. 235

must adopt it. You talk of mj transsliipping you.
What story am I to tell the captain whom I ask to
receive you ? You don't look like mutineers, and
not one of you is clever enough to act such a part as
would enable me to spin my yarn without exciting
suspicion. Now, suspicion is the last thing we wish
to excite."

" True, sir," said Scott.

It was about a quarter before eight when the
negro boy, who had been preparing the table for my
breakfast, came on deck to tell me that the lady was
in the cabin. I looked through the skylight and
beheld her sitting in an arm-chair. She saw me, and
bowed with a slight smile. I lifted the lid of the
skylight that I might converse with her, and called
down, " Good morning, Miss Noble. I hope you
are feeling very much better ? "

" I am very much better, thank you," she an-
swered, in a voice soft indeed, but whose tone and
firmness were ample warrant of returning strength.

"I hope to join you shortly. My watch on deck
expires in a few minutes. It is a fine bright morn-
ing and there is a noble sailing breeze, and the
schooner is going through the water like a witch."

" I should like to go on deck," she said, " but I
have no covering for my head."

236 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

I recommended her to wait till after breakfast,
when we would go to work to see what the schooner
could yield her in the shape of head-gear ; and short-
ly afterward, on Butler arriving to relieve me, I
joined her. She had dressed her hair, and this and
the effect of the comfortable night she had passed
had made another being of her. With her recovery,
or, at all events, with her improvement, had reap-
peared what I might suppose her habitual nature.
Her countenance expressed decision of character ;
her gaze was gentle but steadfast ; and in the set of
her lips there was such a suggestion of self-control
as even my untutored sea-faring eye could not miss.
I now took notice, too, of her well-bred air. In the
hurry and agitation of the preceding day I had
missed this quality, or she may have failed to ex-
press it. But now, on my entering the cabin, and
on her rising and extending her hand, I was instant-
ly sensible of the presence of the high-born lady.

Almost in the first words she pronounced she
asked me for my name. I gave it to her, and with
mingled dignity and sweetness she thanked me for
my sympathy and attention. Our discourse was
chiefly about her health, the sort of night she had
passed, and the like, while Tom was putting the
breakfast upon the table. We then seated ourselves.

IDA NOBLE. 237

She ate witli appetite, but was so reserved at first
that I thouglit to myself, " Now, Madame, I suppose
you intend I shall thoroughly understand you are a
lady of high degree, between whom and a second
mate in the merchant service there stretches a so-
cial interval wide as the Atlantic Ocean ; and
though I had hoped you would tell me your story
and help me to a clear understanding of Don Chris-
toval and his expedition, you mean to disappoint
me through your new resolution to assert your
dignity."

But never was I more mistaken in a lady's
character. I could see her glancing from time to
time at the negro boy, who lost no opportunity of
staring at her in return, as though he expected to
see her at any moment snatch up a knife. I be-
lieved I could read her thoughts, and told the boy
to go on deck and stop there till I called him. She
trifled for a bit with her rings ; then, with a little
show of nervousness, though her accents did not
falter, she said to me :

" Mr. Portlack, from the moment of my fainting
on that dreadful night, down to my awaking yes-
terday, I seem to remember nothing. I say I seem,
and yet I am haunted by a sort of horrid memory —
how shall I express it ? It is the shadow of a recol-

238 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

lection, and that recollection again is, as it were,"
pressing her brow as though struggling to deeply
realize her thought, " no more than the memory
of the shadow of something horrible. Am I mean-
ingless to you ? "

" No."

She viewed me anxiously and searchingly, and
said, " Have I been mad ? "

" You were insensible when you were brought
aboard, and you awoke from your extraordinary
stupor for the first time yesterday."

" Mr. Portlack, tell me, have I been out of my

mind ? "

Hating a lie as I do, I was yet resolved that she

should not know the truth, and I said " No " with

so much emphasis that her face instantly cleared.

She smiled, and clasped her hands. " Ah ! " she

exclaimed, breathing deep as though she sighed,

"in so long and dreadful a slumber I must have

dreamed many fearful dreams."

I wished to disengage her mind from this sub-
ject, and I was also desirous that she should under-
stand, without further loss of time, how it happened
that I made one of the kidnaping gang.

" With your permission," said I, " I will tell
you my story, which, I believe, you will think a

IDA NOBLE. 239

strange one even in the experiences of a sea-faring
person."

She watched me with attention, and I proceeded
to relate my adventures, beginning with the Ocean
Eanger, and then going on to the American ship,
to my distressful and perilous situation in the open
boat, and then to this schooner La Casandra fall-
ing in with me ; thus I steadily worked my way
right through my own yarn, omitting nothing save
the incident of the death of Don Christoval. That
she was a young lady of much strength of character
I might now be sure of by her manner of listening
to me. I was graphic enough, particularly in my
description of our arrival off the coast of Cumber-
land ; nevertheless, she attended to me with com-
posure, with iirm lips and steady regard. No ex-
clamation escaped her. Once or twice she sighed,
and once she colored, as though from some sudden
passion of resentment swiftly controlled.

" And now, Miss Noble," said I, " I hope I have
made you understand how it ha]3pcns that I am
here ? "

" Perfectly," she answered, " and I am glad that
you are here, Mr. Portlack. But you have not told
me what has become of Don Christoval and hie
friend."

2J:0 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE,

There was nothing for it — I must tell another
falsehood ; but Heaven would forgive me, for I
meant well. So I answered that I had informed
them, on learning that she was not Madame del
Padron, that it was my intention to carry her home,
and that on my arrival my first business would be
to inform against them for having abducted her ;
whereupon they had prayed to be transshipped to a
passing vessel ; to which, after reflection, I con-
sented, and the two scoundrels were transferred to a
little Portuguese brig on the preceding day.

She sank into thought. After a while she lifted
up her head and gazed slowly and with curiosity
round her at the pictures, tlie mirrors, and the other
furniture in the cabin. Her eyes next went to her
bracelets, and they then met mine. I waited for
her to speak.

" How long is it now, Mr. Portlack, since I was
stolen from my father's house ? "

" This is the sixth day of your absence."

" What will my father and mother think ? They
can not have been able to do anything. That will
be the hardest part to my father. They will have
no idea into what part of the world I was to be
carried. Will they even know that this vessel was
lying off the coast to receive me % "

IDA NOBLE. 241

" Oh, yes," said I, " they will know that. Some
one is certain to have followed the sailors and the
Spaniards as they marched with you to the boat."

" Would there be any papers, any letters, do you
think," said she, " on the body of the man who you
said was killed, from which my father might learn
that this vessel's destination was Cuba ? "

" I do not know. Most probably not."

" What a wanton act of wickedness ! What
unnecessary, barbarous cruelty ! " she exclaimed.
" Had I been driven mad, it would not have been
strange. We had just arrived from a ball, when
my father cried out that there was a crowd of men
outside. He told me to run upstairs. I can not
imagine that he suspected the errand on which they
had come. I believed that the men had arrived
to plunder the house : it is situated on a lonely part
of the coast. I went into a room, and almost at
that moment I heard the report of a gun. The
house is an old-fashioned building, the walls very
thick. I was so far away from the hall that no
sound reached me, but in a short time I heard foot-
steps, and the noise of doors violently opened, and
the voices of men exclaiming in Spanish. The
door of my room was tried ; I had turned the key,

but the lock was an old one. The two Spaniards
18

242 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

put their shoulders against the door, and it flew
open ; then I recollect a few moments of struggling
and shrieking, and nothing more."

" Did you never fear that Don Christoval would
one day or night attempt to carry you off ? "

" Never," she responded, with a note of ve-
hemence disturbing her calm tones, and I saw a
flash in her brown eyes.

" He evidently kept himself acquainted with
your movements."

" Yes," she answered ; " in another week we
were going abroad. We should have been starting
about now, or to-morrow."

" He told me that. AYho was the spy he em-
ployed, I wonder ? "

She reflected, and answered : " No member of
our household, I am sure. Wliat sort of person is
Don Lazarillo de Tonnes ? "

I described him, and perceived by her way of
listening that she had never seen him, and indeed
had never heard of him.

" You may take it. Miss Noble," said I, " that
whoever Don Lazarillo may have been, he found
the money for this adventure."

" That must have been so," she answered ; " Don
Christoval is poor."

IDA NOBLE. 243

" Had he any property in Cuba ? "

" I believe not," sbe answered.

" Forgive me for being inquisitive. "Was — I
mean, is the man in any way related to you ? "

" He is. He is a distant connection on my father's
side. His father was a Spaniard, and, I have al-
ways understood, of noble blood. Don Christoval
was in England, and called upon us when we were
in London. "We afterward met him in Paris. My
father disliked him, and it came to his forbidding
him from holding any communication with us. He
then challenged my brother to a duel, and, unknown
to my father and mother, my brother attended with
a friend, a lieutenant in the Eoyal Navy ; but Don
Christoval did not appear. That is entirely all that
I can tell you about the man, Mr. Portlack."

" I felt," said I, " that he was lying when he
spoke of you as his wife. But how was it possible
to make sure of the truth, one way or the other ?
He put his story so persuasively, his voice was so
sweet, he was so very handsome, that any one be-
lieving in his tale could not but have pitied him,
even to the degree of feeling willing to help him to
recover what he called his own."

She slightly colored, and said, " He only wanted
my money."

244 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

Here I might have complimented her, but I was
an off-hand sailor, without any talent for drawing-
room civihties.

I need not dwell at length upon what passed be-
tween Miss Noble and me on this our first opportu-
nity for enjoying a long chat. It was natural that
we should again and again travel over the same
ground. Though she did not repeat her question
whether she had been out of her mind, I noticed, in
her references to her state of catalepsy or stupor, a
haunting uneasiness, as though the shadow of some
black dream lay upon her in tormenting shapeless-
ness and illusiveness. I can fancy that it resembled
one of those ideas which visit most of us in our life-
time— the idea that we have felt, suffered, or done
something in another sphere of being.

She was clearly a lady of strong constitution.
She showed no traces of the condition she had been
in for nearly a week. One would have thought to
see her haggard, bloodless, famine-pinched, with
pale lips and unlighted eyes ; but, making due allow-
ance for the costume of crimson dressing-gown and
for the absence of divers finishing details of toilet,
I could not conceive that she, at any time in her
life, could have looked much better than she now
did. May be her profound sleep had cleansed her

IDA NOBLE. 245

countenance of the dreadful marks which the talons
of the fiend Madness commonly grave upon the
human face. Be this as it may, her health seemed
excellent as I sat conversing with her at that break-
fast-table ; her calm voice had the true music of
good breeding ; her remarks exhibited no common
order of perception and good sense, and to my mind
— though it is said that sailors are easy to please —
she needed no other face than her own, with its soft
brown eyes, and purely feminine lineaments, and
dark red hair, massive, abundant, and glowing, to
be as fascinating a lady as a man could hope to meet
with in English or any other society.

I had, in the course of our conversation, told her
very honestly what the sailors intended to do. I
added that they were right in endeavoring to escape
from the consequences of a wrong into the perpe-
tration of which they had been basely betrayed by
the lies of Don Christoval and his friend. I had
then explained that I should be left alone in the
schooner with the negro boy, but that I had not the
least doubt of promptly obtaining all the help I
needed to carry the vessel safely and comfortably
home. This made her ask how long it might take
us to reach home.

" Eight or ten days," I answered.

246 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

" What, meanwhile, am I to do for clothes ? "
said she ; and, with something of unconsciousness in
her manner, as though her lingers were governed
by a thought in her head, she opened her dressing-
gown and revealed herseK in ball attire.

Though she had been thus appareled for a week
there seemed to be nothing soiled, nothing faded, in
this aspect of her. It was the suddenness of the
revelation, I dare say, that gave to her form the brill-
iance I found in it. Then, there was also the con-
trast of the rich crimson dressing-gown to heighten
this instant splendor of attire and the incomparable
whiteness of her neck and shoulders, though these
were still defaced by several long, ugly black
scratches. She buttoned the dressing-gown to her
throat again, and said, -with a smile full of self-pos-
session, but sweetened by a little expression of sad-
ness :

" This is not the kind of dress that one would
wear at sea, Mr. Portlack."

" It is very beautiful," said I in my simple way.

" The skirt is badly torn," she exclaimed. " Those
wretches must have treated me very roughly, even
after I had fainted."

" You certainly will require warmer clothing
than that ball-dress," said I. " Stay ! an idea occurs

IDA NOBLE. 247

to me. "Was it Don Cliristoval — yes, I believe it
was Don Christoval, who informed me — who im-
plied rather — that he had made some provisions for
you in the matter of dress." I shouted through the
skylight for Tom. The boy arrived. " Go and
ask Mr. Butler," said I, " if he can tell me in what
part of the vessel Captain Dopping stowed the
wearing apparel which was taken on board by Don
Cliristoval for the use of this lady."

The boy went on deck. Presently Butler's head
showed in the skylight. There was a shawl round
his throat, that covered his mouth to the height of
his nostrils, and he wore a sou'-wester, the forward
thatch of which he had turned down, while the ear-
lappets hid his cheeks. It was clear he did not in-
tend that Miss Noble should see more of his face
than might serve him to breathe with.

" Beg pardon, sir," he said in a muffled hurricane
note, talking through his shawl. " Here's this here
Tom come with some message from you, and I don't
know what he means." I explained. " Ho ! yes,"
said he ; " I understand now. There's a chest of
garments, I believe, stowed away down in the laza-
reet."

In less than twenty minutes the negro lad and
I had explored the lazarette, discovered the chest,

248 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

lugged it into Miss Noble's cabin, and there left it
open. All that it contained I could not tell you,
but when I next saw Miss Noble she was wearing
a green dress of some light, good material, the waist
of which was secured by a band, and on her head
was a plain straw hat of a sort to prove very serv-
iceable to a lady at sea.

CHAPTEK IX.

CAPTAIN NOBLE.

Kow, until we had closed the Spanish coast, that
is to say, during the following four days, nothing
happened of such moment as deserves your atten-
tion. The men kept themselves as much as possible
out of sight of Miss I^oble, and every fellow whose
turn it was to stand at the helm invariably ar-
rived so concealed about the face that I would often
find it difficult to give him his right name. The
sailors' dread of being observed by Miss l^oble grew
speedily into a real inconvenience ; it came, indeed,
very near to hindering me, in the daytime when the
lady was on deck, from navigating the schooner ;
and to end it I took occasion, when we sat below at
some meal or other, to tell her of what the men
were afraid ; with the result, that until the fellows
left us her visits to the deck were very few, and
chiefly in the dusk.

It was four days from the date of the transship-

250 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

ment of Don Lazarillo and the cook that bj my
computation we arrived within ten leagues of the
coast of Spain, the port of Cadiz bearing about
east-by-south. It was a sunny morning, with a
pleasant breeze. We hove the schooner to, for I
did not think proper to approach the land nearer
than thirty miles. Here and there was a gleam
of white canvas upon the horizon; and I thought
to myself, reflecting in the interests of the men,
their departure must not be witnessed, nor must
anything be near enough to fall in with them and
to have the schooner in sight also ; therefore I hove
La Casandra to at a distance of about ten leagues
from the port of Cadiz, nothing being visible but
one or two sail, hull down.

Everything was in readiness. You will believe
that the boat, owing to the men's anxiety to get
away, had been long before this morning pro-
visioned and equipped. She was launched through
the gangway just as she had been launched off the
Cumberland coast on that silent, tragic night ; then,
while she lay alongside, the seamen, in obedience to
my command, went to work to reduce sail upon
the schooner, so that there would be little left for
me and Tom to do should it come on to blow before
we could procure help. While this was doing

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 251

Miss Noble remained in the cabin. Everything
being ready, Butler stepped up to me with his hand
extended. I grasped and shook it.

" Good-by, sir, and we all hope, I'm sure, that
you'll have a safe and happy run home."

" Good-by, Butler — good-by, my lads. Tou
have behaved very well. I thank you for the will-
ingness with which you have done your work
under me. See that the yarn you have in your
heads you all stick to, so that you'll be able to speak
as with one tongue when you get ashore."

" Trust us, sir," said Scott.

" I hope the lady thoroughly imderstands," said
Trapp, " how it happened that we five Englishmen
was led into a job which ne'er a man of us would
have touched, no, not for five times the money
received, had the true meaning of it been ex-
plained ? "

" She does. And now you had better be off."

They entered the boat, stepped the mast, and I
gave Butler the course to steer by the little box
compass that had been placed in the stern-sheets.
They then hoisted the sail, and as the boat slid
away from the shadow of the schooner's side, they
all stood up and loudly cheered me. I halloed a
cheer back to them with a flourish of my cap, then

252 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

stepped aft, and, putting the helm over, brought the
schooner with her head to west-north-west.

" Come and lay hold of the tiller, Tom." The
negro boy arrived. " Miss Noble," said I, putting
my head into the companion-way, " the men have
left the schooner."

She at once came on deck, and stood looking
in silence at tlie cutter as she swept swiftly east-
ward under the white square of her lug.

" We are lonely indeed, now," she presently ex-
claimed, bringing her eyes from the boat to cast
them round the horizon.

" Yes," said I, " but we are going home," and I
pointed to the compass.

But she was right, for all that. Lonely the
schooner looked with her deserted decks and small
canvas, and lonely I felt, not so much at the be-
ginning as later on, when the rolling hours brought
the night along, without heaving anything into
view that we could turn to account. Miss ISToble
earnestly wished to help ; she assured me she could
steer ; she was sprung, she said, from a naval stock,
and she told me that salt water had run in the veins
of several generations on her father's side, and that
she was to be trusted at the helm. And, indeed, I
found that she steered perfectly well ; she held the

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 253

yaclit's head steady to her course ; and as half the
art of steering lies in that, the most experienced
man conld not have done more.

Her taking the helm enabled the boy to cook
for ns, and it gave me an opportunity to obtain
sights, to attend to the sails, and the like. Yet,
when day broke next morning, I well remember
heartily praying that I should not have to pass, sin-
gle-handed, such another night as we had managed
to scrape through. I was on deck all night long.
I obliged Miss Noble to go below and take some
rest, and Tom slept at my feet while I grasped the
tiller, ready to relieve me when I was exhausted
with standing. Happily it was a fine night ; a
warm wind blew out of the west, and the stars
shone purely with a few shadows of clouds sailing
down the eastern slope.

It was shortly after eight o'clock, while I stood
near the tiller drinking a cup of chocolate which
Tom had brought me out of the galley, where
he had lighted a fire, that, happening to look
astern, I spied a sail. Nothing else was in sight,
and I had but to look once to know that she was
overtaking us. This, indeed, must have been prac-
ticable to the clumsiest wagon afloat ; for the can-
vas the schooner was under, merry as was the breeze

254 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

that whipped the sea into snow and fire under the
risen sun, was scarcely sufficient to drive her along
at four miles in the hour.

When I had drunk my chocolate I bade Tom
prepare some breakfast for Miss I^oble, who was, or
had been, resting on a sofa in the cabin. When
the girl had finished her meal she came on deck.
And now the overtaking vessel had risen to her
hull, and in the telescope which I pointed at her
was proving herself a large ship, with a black and
white band and a red gleam of copper under the
checkered side as she leaned from the breeze.

" I wish she may not be an English frigate,"
said I to Miss Noble.

" Why ? " she asked.

" Because," said I, " she is sure to prove too in-
quisitive to be convenient. She'll be sending a
lieutenant on board ; he will see you ; he will ask
questions ; he will demand the schooner's papers ; he
will not be satisfied, and will return to his ship for
instructions ; and we want to get home comfortably,
Miss Noble."

" I understand you," she answered. " But an
English frigate ! What security, what safety is
there in the very sound of the words ! "

I waited a little while, and then, again leveling

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 255

the glass at the vessel, I clearly perceived that she
was not an English frigate, but a large merchant-
man, resembling a man-of-war in many details, sav-
ing the row of grinning artillery, the white line of
hammocks, the heavy tops, and a peculiar cut of
canvas that could never be mistaken by a nautical
eye in those days of tacks and sheets. Apparently
she was a troop ship out of the Mediterranean ; there
were many red spots of uniform upon her forecastle
past the yawn and curves of the white and swelling
jibs. And, indeed, she had need to be a hired trans-
port, for nothing of her rig would have any business
in the Mediterranean, and nothing homeward bound
from the Indies or the Australias was likely to be met
with 80 far to the eastward as was the longitude of
the waters we were in. I hoisted the Spanish en-
sign, and left it flying at half-mast.

" Now, Miss Noble," said I, " what story shall I
tell those people, should they heave to and send a
boat, as I hope and believe they will ? "

She gazed at me inquiringly.

" If I give them the whole truth," said I, " it
will run like wildfire throughout the ship. The
vessel will probably arrive before we do ; there are
crowds of people on board to talk ; the news of the
outrage done you and yours will be circulated,

256 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

printed ; it will become everybody's gossip. Now,
would Captain Noble wish this ? Would my lady,
your mother, desire this ? "

" No, they would not," she answered, after a
pause. " You are kind and wise to ask the question.
The thought did not occur to me when I wished
that yonder vessel might prove an English frigate."

" Then I must invent a story," said I.

" But did not you say," she asked, " that when
we arrived at an English port you would be obhged
to hand the schooner over to the authorities of the
port, to whom you would relate the truth, as it
would be impossible and most unwise to attempt
to deceive them? Those were your words, Mr.
Portlack."

" Yes, I remember ; those were my words. "Well,
Miss Noble ? "

" TTell," said she, " don't you see that, since you
must tell the truth when you arrive in England, this
wretched story will have to be made public in any
case ? "

" No," said I, " there is a difference. Yonder is
a ship full of soldiers and sailors, and others — gossips
all, no doubt. To give them the truth — and to give
it to the captain or the mate is to give it to them all
— is tantamount to publishing your story throughout

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 257

England, whether you will or not ; but to communi-
cate with the receiver of wrecks is another matter.
There is official reserve to depend upon. Your fa-
ther, too, will not be wanting in influence. To me,
Miss Noble, it is all one. I desire to be influenced
by your wishes."

" My wish certainly is," said she in her calm,
emphatic way of speaking, " that as little as possible
of what has befallen me should be known."

" Then," said I, " I will ask you to step into the
cabin and keep in 3'our own berth out of sight until
the visit I hope to receive is ended."

She went below forthwith.

Half an hour later the large full-rigged hired
transport Talavera had ranged alongside La Casan-
dra, easily within ear-shot. She was crowded with
troops; numbers of military officers in undress uni-
form surveyed us from tlie poop. A tall man in
a frock coat aiid a cap with a naval peak stood
upon a hen-coop^ and hailed to know what was the
matter.

" My men have deserted," I cried back ; " there

are but this negro boy and myself to carry the

schooner to an English port. Can you lend me a

couple of hands ? "

" I will send a boat," he exclaimed, very easily
17

258 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

perceiving that it was impossible for me to board
him.

A boat in charge of a mottled-faced, jolly-look-
ing, round-shouldered man, about thirty years of
age, swept alongside, and the jolly-looking man came
on board.

" Are you the master ? " said he.

" Yes," said I.

" Short of men, hey ? " said he. " So I should
suppose, if Ae's your crew, " bursting into a laugh as
he indicated the negro boy with a motion of his
chin. " How come you to be at sea with no more
crew than one little nigger ? "

" My crew," said I, " were composed of five
English sailors. They were shipped at Cadiz. Yes-
terday they took the boat, and sailed away to the
coast of Spain in her, saying iliey weren't going to
England. Can you lend me a couple of hands ? "

" What's the name of this craft ? " said he, look-
ing up at the Spanish ensign.

" La Casandra."

" From Cadiz, d'ye say ? — to where ? "

"To Penzance," said I, naming the first port
that entered my head.

" Who's the owner ? "

" Don Lazarillo de Tonnes."

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 259

He asked several further questions of a like sort,
and seemed perfectly satisfied with my answers. I
invited him to step below and drink a glass of wine,
but he declined, saying that his ship was in too
great a hurry to get home to allow him to stop and
take a friendly glass on the road.

He had not long returned to the Talavera when
the boat, in charge of a midshipman, came alongside
the schooner again, and a couple of young sailors,
each wdth a sailor's bag upon his shoulder, climbed
over the side. The midshipman, looking up, called
out to me : " They're a couple of Dutchmen, but
the captain guesses they'll serve your turn." I told
him to give my hearty thanks to the captain for his
kindness. He then went back to his ship, which
immediately swung her yards, and in a little while a
wide space of water separated the two vessels.

" Dutchman " is a generic word employed by
sailors to designate Germans, Swedes, Danes, and
others of the northern nationalities. These two
Dutchmen proved to be, the one a yoimg Swede,
who spoke English very imperfectly, and the other
a young Dane, whose knowledge of English was
almost wholly restricted to the names of ropes
and sails ; both of them smart, respectful young
fellows, without curiosity, accepting their sudden

260 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

change of life with the proverbial indifference of
the sailor.

I had intended, for the convenience of Miss No-
ble, to carry the schooner to Whitehaven ; but before
we gained the parallel of Land's End it came on to
blow heavily from the north and west — so heavily,
and with such an ugly, menacing look of continu-
ance in the wide, dark, greenish scowl of the sky,
that I thought proper to shift my helm for the
English Channel. There we encountered terrible
weather. I hoped to make some near port, but,
owing to the thickness and to the gale that had
veered due west, I could do nothing but keep the
schooner running until we were off the South Fore-
land. The weather then moderating, I steered for
Kamsgate harbor, and the schooner was safely
moored alongside the wall of the East Pier in six
days to the hour from the date of our receiving the
two seamen from the Talavera.

You will suppose that Miss E'oble long before
this had written a letter — nay, had written four
letters — to her father ready for instantly posting on
her arrival anywhere. It seems that he had four
addresses — his house in Cumberland, his house in
town, and two clubs, one in London and one in the
north — and she was determined that her letters

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 261

slioTild not be delayed through his absence from
one address or another. These letters were im-
mediately posted, but communication in those days
was not as it is now, and if it happened that her
father was in Cumberland, then, let him post it
and coach it as he would, it must occupy him hard
upon four days — and perhaps five days — to reach
Hamsgate.

Certain Custom House ofificers came on board
and rummaged the schooner for contraband cargo.
They stared hard at the cabin furniture, and moved
and groped here and there with eyes full of sus-
picion. I told Miss Noble that my immediate busi-
ness now lay at the Custom House, and I begged to
know what her plans were, that I might help her to
further them.

" I will go to a hotel," she answered, " and there
wait for my father. As you are going into the
town, will you engage a sitting-room and bedroom
for me at the best hotel in the place ? And I will
also ask you to order a trunk-maker to send a port-
manteau down to this schooner, otherwise I shall not
know how to pack my ball-dress and jewelry. This
dress," said she, looking down at the robe in which
she was attired, and which had formed a portion of
the apparel that Don Christoval had laid in for her,

262 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

" I shall continue to wear until my fatlier brings
me the dresses I have written for."

" I will do what you ask," said I, and, leaving
her on board, I climbed the ladder affixed to the pier
wall, and bent my steps in the direction of the Cus-
tom House.

The receiver was a little, eager-looking man,
afflicted with several nervous disorders. He could
neither sit nor stand for any length of time 4 he
blinked hideously, and he also stuttered. My tale
took the form of a deposition, and I omitted no
single point of it, save the assassination of Don
Christoval.

" This," said the little receiver, stammering and
blinking — " this," he exclaimed, when I had come
to an end, " is a very extraordinary story, sir."

" It is," said I.

" Captain Noble is a well-known gentleman,"
said he. " I was for a short time on duty at "Wliite-
haven, and heard much of him."

" His daughter has written to him," said I, " and
he will doubtless be here as fast as he can travel.
And what about the schooner ? "

" I must wait for instructions," he answered ;
" your deposition will be sent to head-quarters."

" Have I not a lien upon her ? "

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 263

"For what? "said he.

" For services rendered."

" Seems the other way about, don't it ? " said
he, with his stammer. " The services appear to
have been rendered by her to you."

" There are two men and a boy who want their
wages," said I.

" Who is the owner, d'ye say ? " exclaimed the
little man.

" Don Lazarillo de Tormes."

" Well, he will be communicated with."

" No, he won't, though," said I. " We shall
never hear anything more of Don Lazarillo de
Tormes. What ! do you think that the man would
dare come forward and claim his schooner on top
of an outrage which would earn him transporta-
tion for life, could they get hold of him in this
country ? "

"If he doesn't come forward," said the little
receiver, blinking at me, " and if the schooner re-
remains unclaimed for any length of time, why,
then she will be sold ; and there'll be your opportu-
nity for asserting your rights."

I walked into the town, leaving the little re-
ceiver putting on his hat to view the wonderful
schooner, with a hope, too, of catching a sight of

264 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

Miss Noble. I obtained the required accommoda-
tion for the ladj at the Albion Hotel ; then, observ-
ing a shop in which some trunks were displayed,
I told the shopkeeper to send one of them, or a
portmanteau if he had such a thing, down to the
schooner La Casandra. Entering the street again,
I walked a little way, and, finding myself in the
market-place, stopped to consider. I did not possess
a farthing of money in my pocket, and it would
take me some time to draw my little savings out
of that London bank in which they were deposited ;
but money for immediate needs I must have, and,
addressing a porter in a white apron, who stood
in the market-place smoking a pipe, I asked him
to direct me to a pawnbroker. He pointed with
his pipe up the street, and proceeding in that direc-
tion I presently observed the familiar sign of the
three balls. I entered, and put down the gold chain
and watch that had belonged to Don Christoval,
and for it I received twenty sovereigns and a
ticket.

I then returned to the schooner, where I found
Miss Noble in the cabin reasoning with the trunk-
maker, who had arrived, bearing with him two or
three samples of the desired goods.

" He will not trust me, Mr. Portlack ! and yet

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 265

it is true — and too absurd — that I can make him
nothing but promises of payment."

" Pray, how much do you want ? " said I.

"Fourteen shillings," she answered, and she
added tranquilly, with a slight smile, " To think that
I should want fourteen shillings ! "

I put down a sovereign ; the man gave me
change, shouldered the remaining boxes, and went
away.

Having escorted Miss l^oble to her hotel, I again
returned to the schooner, which I intended should
be my home until after the arrival of Captain No-
ble. The two sailors asked me what they should
do. I advised them to ship aboard a collier and
make their way to London, where they would easily
find some one to advise them as to what proceed-
ings they should take in respect of reward for the
assistance they had rendered me in carrying the
schooner home. Next day they found a collier
wanting men, and, giving them a sovereign, I bade
them farewell. I never heard of them again.

Meanwhile, I kept the negro boy on board the
schooner.

We had arrived at Ramsgate on a Wednesday
morning. On the afternoon of the following Tues-
day I was pacing the deck of the schooner as she

266 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

lay moored against the pier wall. The harbor mas-
ter had not long left me. An hour we had spent
together, I in talking and he in listening ; for the
receiver, with whom he was intimate, had dropped
many hints of my story to him over a glass of whis-
ky and water one night, and he told me he could
not rest until he had heard my version of the ex-
traordinary romance. It was a brilhant afternoon ;
a fresh breeze from the west swept into the har-
bor between the pier-heads, and the water danced
in light. A few smacks, bowed down by their
weight of red canvas, were endeavoring to beat
out to sea. A number of wherries straining at
their painters frolicked in the flashful tumble, past
w^iich was the slope of beach with galleys and
small boats high and dry, and many forms of loung-
ing boatmen. On the milk-white heights of chalk
the windows of the houses glanced in silver fires,
which came and went in a sort of breathing way as
they blazed out and were then extinguislffed by the
violet shadows of masses of swollen cloud majes-
tically rolling under the sun.

I was gazing with pleasure at this animated
'longshore picture, full of color and splendor and
movement, when I observed a gentleman rapidly
coming along the pier, which happened to be almost

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 267

deserted. There was something of a deep-sea roll
in his gait, and though he chitehed a stick in one
hand, the other hung down at his side in a manner
that is pecuhar to people who have long used the
sea. I seemed to guess who he was, and watched
him approaching while I knocked the ashes out of
my pipe. He came to the edge of the wall, and,
looking down, shouted out in a hoarse voice :

" Is this schooner the Casandra ? "

" Yes, sir," I answered.

He put his hand on the ladder and descended.
He had a clean-shaven face, the color of which at
this moment was a fiery red, but then he had been
walking fast. His eyes were large, and remarkable
for an expression of eager expectation, as though
he had been all his life waiting to receive some
important communication. His hat was a broad-
brimmed beaver ; he was buttoned up in a stout
bottle-green coat, and he was booted after the fash-
ion of country gentlemen of that age.

" My name is Noble — Captain Noble," said he.
" Are you Mr. Portlack ? "

" I am," said I.

" Give me your hand," he exclaimed. He
grasped and squeezed my fingers almost bloodless,
letting go my hand with a vehement jerk as though

268 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

he threw it from him. " I thank you for bringing
my daughter home, sir. Her mother thanks you
for your attention to her child. You have acted
the part of a gentleman, of a sailor, of a man of
honor. I thank you again, and yet again." Then,
glancing along the decks of the vessel, he added,
" So this is the blasted schooner, hey ? "

" I trust Miss Noble has told you," said I, " how
it happens that I was on board this vessel on the
night of her abduction ? "

" Yes," he answered, still continuing to examine
the vessel curiously, now looking aloft, now for-
ward, now aft, as though he could not take too com-
plete a view of the craft. " Yes, she told me. The
scoundrels ! Thank God ! I shot one of 'em. I
would have shot 'em all, but the ruffians stood over
me and my son with naked cutlasses and loaded
pistols."

" I hope they did not burn the house down ? "

" No, we extinguished the fire. Fifteen hundred
pounds' worth of damage — that's all ! " He made a
cut through the air with his stick, exclaiming:
" The rogues ! the villains ! They took me un-
aware. So many of them, too ! How many were
there ? "

" Two Spaniards," said I, " the master of this

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 269

schooner^ and four seamen. You were attacked by
seven."

" Seven ! " he cried. " Seven against two ! for
as to my coachman and footman — what do you
think ? They drove away — by heavens ! they lashed
the horses and bolted ! I should like to go below ;
I should like to examine this blackguard craft. A
fine, stout vessel all the same. A pirate in her
day, no doubt."

We descended into the cabin, which he at once
made the round of, peering at the pictures, staring
at the looking-glasses, examining the chairs, as
though he were in a museum and every object
was extraordinarily curious.

"And pray, how is Miss Xoble, sir?" said I.
" I have not seen her since Tuesday."

" Yery well ; wonderfully well," he answered.

" How do you find her in looks after her terrible
experience ? "

" Wliy, neither her mother nor I see any change.
She is a shade paler than she commonly is. But the
girl has the heart of a lioness."

" So she has, sir."

" Now," said he, " Mr. Portlack, tell me about
those two cursed Spaniards. I want to get at
them."

270 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

He flung his stick upon the table and threw
himself into an arm-chair.

" What did your daughter tell you about those
two men ? " said I.

" Why, she was insensible, she says, for the
greater part of the time, and you informed her that,
on the day of her recovery, you transshipped the two
miscreants at their request. What vessel received
them ? " and here he pulled out a pocket-book and a
pencil-case, with the intention of taking notes.

" Your daughter told you that she was insensible,
sir, and that she continued insensible for many
days ? "

" Yes," said he, flourishing his pencil with an
irritable gesture, clearly annoyed at my not answer-
ing his question.

" That," said I, " is all that she would be able to
tell you."

My manner caused him to view me steadfastly,
and the odd expression of expectation in his eyes
grew more defined.

" When your daughter awoke from her first
swoon, Captain Noble, she awoke — mad."

" What do you mean by mad ? " he said.

" She was a maniac," said I. " And I wish that
were all."

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 2Y1

" Out with it — out with it all, then, man, for
God's sake ! " he exclaimed.

" Only one Spaniard, along with the Spanish
steward, left the schooner. The body of the other
Spaniard we dropped overboard."

He put his note-book on the table and tightly
folded his arms on his breast. I believe, though I
could not be sure, that he then guessed what I was
about to tell him.

" I knew that your daughter was mad," said I.
" Don Christoval introduced me into her cabin, hop-
ing, I know not what, from my visit. It was not
long after, that, being in the quarters which I then
occupied yonder," said I, pointing, " I heard a terri-
ble cry, and opening that door there I witnessed
Don Christoval in the act of falling and expiring,
stabbed to the heart by your daughter, who stood
just within her cabin — that one there — grasping
a large knife she had managed to get possession
of."

He fell back in his chair, and remained for some
moments looking at me as though he could not un-
derstand my meaning ; then a sort of groan escaped
him, and he got up and began to march about the
cabin.

" These are dreadful tidings for a father's ears,"

272 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

he exclaimed, stopping abreast of me. Then his
mood changed with almost electric swiftness, and,
hitting the table a heavy blow with his fist, he
roared out : " By — , but it served the rufiian right !
It was my spirit working in her, mad as she might
be. That's how I would have served him, and the
rest of them, one and all — the atrocious villains ! "

"Of course you know," said I, "that your
daughter is utterly ignorant of having slain that
Spaniard — ignorant of that, and ignorant that she
was out of her mind : though some dark fancy
seemed to haunt her for a while, until, by a false-
hood, which I detest, I dispelled it."

" What did you tell her ? "

" She asked me if she had been mad, and I said
'No'!"

"Mr. Portlack," he cried, grasping me by the
hand, " you have the delicacy of a gentleman. The
more I know of you the more I honor you. . . .
And she stabbed him to the heart? Oh, now,
to think of it ! Her mother must not be told —
there must not be a whisper ; she is all nerves and
imagination. Who knows of this beside your-
self?"

" The five seamen," said I ; " the five of a crew
of Englishmen, who, when they found that they had

CAPTAIN NOBLE, 273

been tricked by the Spaniards, resolved to leave the
schooner. They sailed away in a boat for Cadiz
when we were off that port. They know all about
the assassination ; but, take my word for it, they'll
never let you hear of them on this side of the
grave."

He began to pace the cabin afresh,

" There is another," said I, " who possesses the
secret, to call it so."

" You mean yourself ? "

" No ; a lad — a negro boy. He is now in the
schooner. I am troubled to know what to do with
him. I have made him believe that he and I will
both be hanged if he opens his lips. Yet, he may
talk by and by, Captain ISToble. He is a mere lad,"

" What is to be done ? " said he, frowning.
" Tough as I am, it would break my heart if this
were to be known. Conceive the effect of the intel-
ligence upon my daughter. Great Heaven ! if you
could but tell me it was a dream of yours ! Upon
your secrecy, Mr, Portlack, I know we can all
depend. Your behavior throughout is warrant
enough for me. How to thank you — But about
this boy ? Let me see him, will you ? "

I at once went on deck and called down into the

forecastle, where the lad lay asleep in a bunk. I
18

274 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

told him to clean himself and come to me in the
cabin, and I then returned to Captain Noble.

"There is only this lad to deal with," said I.
" Believe me when I assure you that you will never
hear more of those five seamen, nor of Don Laza-
rillo and the steward. Captain Dopping, the master
of this schooner, you yourself shot dead. As for
me — But for myself I will say no more than this : I
hold that your daughter was barbarously used. The
men who stole her, and who drove her mad by steal-
inff her, were scoundrels whom I would have shot
down as I would shoot down a brace of mad mon-
grels, sooner than have suffered them, as foreigners,
to lay violent hands upon a countrywoman of mine,
and upon so good and sweet a young lady as your
daughter. My one desire throughout has been to
make all the amends in my power. I was innocently
betrayed into this villainous business, and I trust,
Captain Noble, that the theory of reparation I have
endeavored to work out establishes me in your mind
as a man in whose keeping the tragic secret of this
adventure is absolutely safo."

He endeavored to speak, but his voice failed
him. He took my hand in both his, and in silence
looked at me with his eyes dim with tears.

" And now about the boy," said I. " It occurs

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 275

to me that 3^011 might have influence to procure him
some situation on board a man-of-war, going abroad
or at present abroad."

He was about to answer, when the lad's legs
showed in the companion-way and down he came.
Captain Noble stared at him, and he stared at the
Captain.

" A likely lad, Mr. Portlack. Does he speak
EngHsh ? "

" Do you speak English, Tom ? " said I.

" ISTufliu but English, de Lord be praised ! " he
answered, grinning.

Captain Noble mused as he eyed him. "You
have behaved very lionestly," said he, "and I
shall w^ant to do you a kindness. Come to the
hotel where I am stopping to-morrow morning at
ten o'clock, and you and I will have a chat."

'• I'll be dere, sah."

" It will give me time to think," said Captain
Noble in an aside to me. " And come you and
dine with us this evening, Mr. Portlack, will you ? "
I glanced down at my clothes. " Never mind about
your dress," he continued. " "We shall expect you
at half-past six o'clock."

He stayed for anotlicr quarter of an hour, and
then left the schooner.

276 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

IS'ever had anything before, and I may say never
has anything since, proved so memorable to me as
that dinner with Captain and Lady Ida Noble and
Miss Noble at the Albion Hotel, Eamsgate. The
reason why it was memorable you shall hear in a
minute. I found Lady Ida Noble very different
from the individual I had supposed her to be, on the
representations of Don Christoval. I expected to
meet a tall, haughty^ and forbidding lady, of an ice-
like coldness of demeanor ; instead, I found her an
impulsive little woman, in a high degree nervous
and emotional, possessed of a ready capacity of
tears, resembling her daughter in face and figure in
a sort of miniature way — for Miss Noble stood half a
head taller than her mother — and a refined lady in
all she said and did. She overwhelmed me with
thanks, and seemed unable to make enough of
me.

Miss Noble looked very well indeed ; there was
color in her cheek and fire in her soft dark eyes,
and a quiet vivacity of good health in her bearing
and movements. Indeed, her swift recovery, or rath-
er, let me say, her emergence into health from the
horrible disease of insanity and from her long death-
like condition of catalepsy, impressed me then, as it
impresses me still, as the most startling and extraor-

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 277

dinary of all the incidents of our startling and ex-
traordinary voyage.

"WTien the ladies had left us, Captain Xoble put
a cigar-case upon the table, and said :

" I have been thinking about that negro boy. I
have a relative in the West Indies, and I will send
the lad out to him, if he is willing to go. I will tell
my relative the story of my daughter's abduction,
explain that I want the matter kept secret, and bid
him have an eye to the lad."

" He is a good boy," said I, " and deserves a com-
fortable berth."

" He shall have it," said Captain Noble, " and I
will put money in his pocket, too. I'll talk with
him in the morning."

He then questioned me about Don Lazarillo, but
I could tell him nothing. The very name, indeed, I
said, might be assumed, though I thought this im-
probable, seeing that the other had sailed under true
colors. In talking of these Spaniards he, by design
or accident, informed me that his daughter was heiress
to a considerable property. I can not be sure of the
amount he named, but I have a recollection of his
saying that on her mother's death she would inherit
a fortune of between sixty thousand and eighty
thousand pounds. One subject leading to another,

278 THE TRAGEDY OF IDA NOBLE.

he inquired as to the payment of the sailors of La
Casandra. I answered that Don Lazarillo, being
terrified bj the seamen's threats, had entered his
dead friend's bertli and produced a bag of gold
whicli exactly sufficed to discharge the claims of the
men.

" And what did the rogues offer you, Mr. Port-
lack ? " said he.

" Fifty guineas, sir."

" Did you get it ? "

I smiled, and answered that, instead of money,
Don Lazarillo had given me Don Christoval's watch
and chain and diamond ring.

" Have you the things upon you ? " said he.

" I have the ring," said I, pulling it out of my
waistcoat pocket. " The w^atcli and chain I pawned
for twenty pounds, being without money, save a
trifle in a savings bank in London. What this ring
is worth I'm sure I can't imagine," said I, looking at
it. " I hope it will yield me an outfit. I as good as
lost everything I possessed when the Ocean Ranger
sailed away in chase of the Yankee, leaving me
adrift."

He extended his hand for the ring, and appeared
to examine it. '' Have you the pawn-ticket for the
watch and chain ? " he asked. I gave it to him.

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 279

" I sliould like to possess that watch and chain," said
he, " and I should like also to possess this ring. I'll
buy them from you."

I bowed, scarcely as yet seeing my way. He
pulled out his pocket-book and extracted a check
already filled in.

" Yon will do me the favor," said he, " to accept
this as a gift, and I will do you the favor to accept
this pawn-ticket and ring as a gift."

The check was for five hundred guineas.

This noble check is the reason for my calling
that dinner at the Albion Hotel, Ramsgate, a mem-
orable one. It laid the foundations of the little
fortune which I now possess, but which without
that check I should never have possessed, so hope-
lessly unprofitable is the vocation of the mariner.
But I did even better than that out of the ill-fated
Don Christoval and his friend, for, nobody appear-
ing to claim the schooner, she was sold after a con-
siderable lapse of time ; and when I returned from
a voyage in which I had gone as chief oflicer, I was
agreeably surprised at being informed, by the so-
licitor whom I had requested to watch my interests
during my absence, that the claim he had made on
my behalf as virtually the salvor of the schooner
had been admitted, and that I was the richer by a

280 THE TRAGEDY OP IDA NOBLE.

proportion of the proceeds amounting to a hundred
and ninety pounds.

Whether because of tlie influence possessed by
Captain Noble, or because the authorities (who-
ever they might be) decided not to take proceed-
ings against me as the only discoverable member of
the gang who had forced Miss Noble from her home,
certain it is that I never heard anything more of
the matter. I took care that my address should be
known, and carefully informed the receiver at
Ramsgate, and Captain Noble also, that I was will-
ing while ashore at any moment to come forward
and state what I knew ; but, as I have before said, I
was never communicated with. The whole story
lay as dead in the minds of those few who knew
of it as though the events I have related had never
occurred.

Five years had expired since the date of my
having safely restored Miss Noble to her parents.

I was now commanding a large Australian pas-
senger ship, and among those who sailed to Mel-
bourne with me was a gentleman named Fairfield.
He was a solicitor in practice at Carlisle. One day,
in conversing with him, by the merest accident I
happened to pronounce the name of Captain Noble.
He asked me if I knew him. I answered warily

CAPTAIN NOBLE. 281

that I had heard of him. He grew garrulous — an
unusual weakness in a lawyer — and, in the course of
a long quarter-deck yarn, told me that Miss Noble
had been for two years out of her mind, tended as a
lunatic by nurses in her father's house, but for
nearly two years now she had been perfectly well,
and some six months ago had married Sir Ralph

A , Bart., a widower, whose estate lay within

five miles of her father's. He said that there was
some mystery about the lady's past. She had been
abducted and ill-used. He never could get at the
truth himself, and would like to learn it. He un-
derstood that she went out of her mind because of
some liorrible haunting fancy of having committed
a murder.

That was all he could tell me, and from that day
to this I have never been able to hear of either her
or her people.

THE END.

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MERCIFUL DIVORCE. By F. W. Maudk

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WIDO WER INDEED. By Rhoda Broughton
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JOHN BACH MC MASTER.

D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

^ IS TOR Y OF THE PEOPLE

OF THE UNITED ST A TES, from
the Revolution to the Civil War. By
John Bach McMaster, To be com-
pleted in five volumes. Vols. I, II,
and III now ready. 8vo, cloth, gilt
top, $2.50 each.

In the course of this narrative much is written
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of the ambition of political leaders, and of the
rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the his-
tory of the people is the chief theme. At every
stage of the splendid progress which separates the
America of Washington and Adams from the
America in which we live, it has been the au-
thor's purpose to describe the dress, the occupa-
tions, the amusements, the literary canons of the times ; to note the changes
of manners and morals ; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which
abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and
of jails ; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways,
have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of
our race ; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical
inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our
just pride and boast ; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and
peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unpar-
alleled in the annals of human affairs.

"The pledge given by Mr. McMaster, that 'the history of the people shall be the
chief theme,' is punctiliously and satisfactorily fulfilled. He carries out his promise in
a complete, vivid, and delightful way. We should add that the literary execution of
the work is worthy of the indefatigable industry and unceasing vigilance with which
the stores of historical material have been accumulated, weighed, and sifted. The
cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and energy, are everywhere present.
Seldom indeed has a book in which matter of substantial value has been so happily
united to attractiveness of form been offered by an American author to his fellow-
citizens." — New York Sun.

"To recount the marvelous progress of the American people, to describe their life,
their literature, their occupations, their amusements, is Mr. McMaster's object. His
theme is an important one, and we congratulate him on his success. It has rarely been
our province to notice a book with so many excellences and so few defects." — New York
Herald.

" Mr. McMaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special
capacity as a historian of the people. His aim is high, but he hits the mark." —
New York Journal of CottDiierce.

". . . The author's pages abound, too, with illustrations of the best kind of histori-
cal work, that of unearthing hidden sources of information and employing them, not
after the modern style of historical writing, in a mere report, but with the true artistic
method, in a well-digested narrative. ... If Mr. McMaster finishes his work in the
spirit and with the thoroughness and skill with which it has begun, it will take its place
among the classics of American literature." — Christian Union.

New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street.

-S-

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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